THE  LIBR, 

OFI 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


IN  MEMORY  OF 
MRS.  VIRGINIA  B.  SPORER 


THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 


wj    tlif  fitctitif  /•//.     H<-<  ,.,,  'liter  in 


.-/u.vr/?i/','///y 


THE 

SECOND    EMPIRE 

BONAPARTISM    .    THE  PRINCE 

THE  PRESIDENT    .    THE 

EMPEROR 


Caballero  aventurero  es  una  cosa  que 
en  dos  palabros  se  ve  apaleado  y 
Emperador. 

EL  INGENIOSO  HIDALGO 
DON  QUIXOTE  DE  LA  MANCHA. 

You  have  seen  better  days,  dear?     So 

have  I  

PRINCE  KOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, 
SAVIOUR  OF  SOCIETY. 


ILLUSTRATED 


G.   P.   PUTNAM'S  SONS 
NEW  YORK  LONDON 

fmicfterbocfcer    press 


Copyright,  1922 

by 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 


Made  in  the  United  States  of  America 


Published,  October,  1922 
Reprinted,  January,  1923 


D.  G. 

PATRIS      CARISSIMI 
MANIBUS    DILECTIS 

P.O. 


CONTENTS 


BONAPARTISM 
THE  PRINCE      . 
THE  PRESIDENT 
THE  EMPEROR 

AUTHORITIES 
INDEX 


PAGE 
1 

35 
145 

229 
441 
451 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING  PACK 

NAPOLEON  III  (1866)     ...         .         .  Frontispiece 

A  REVIEW  AT  THE  TUILERIES  UNDER  THE  FIRST  EMPIRE       28 

THE  EMPRESS  JOSEPHINE  (1798) 40 

QUEEN  HORTENSE 76 

PRINCE  LOUIS  NAPOLEON  (1836) 88 

THE  PRINCE  PRESIDENT  (1848) 174 

THE  EMPRESS  EUGENIE      .......      244 

THE  EMPRESS  EUGENIE  AND  HER  LADIES     .         .         .258 
NAPOLEON  III  (1863)     .         .         .         .         .         .         .          .264 

THE  COURT  AT  COMPIEGNE  (1857) 292 

THE  EMPEROR  AND  THE  PRINCE  IMPERIAL           .         .      336 
NAPOLEON  III  (1871) 434 


BONAPARTISM 


BONAPARTISM 

BONAPARTISM  stands  to  Napoleon  in  the  somewhat 
peculiar  relation  in  which  most  religions  stand  to 
their  founder.  The  picturesque  imagination  of  in- 
numerable ironists  has  exhausted  itself  in  speculations 
upon  the  probable  feelings  of  various  divine  and 
semi-divine  teachers  when  confronted  with  the  full 
glories  of  their  own  shrines.  But  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  the  sensations  of  the  central  personage  at 
Kamakura  or  St.  Peter's  would  bear  comparison 
for  irony  with  the  thoughts  which  must  rise  in  that 
little  white-breeched,  green-uniformed  figure,  fresh 
from  a  bath  of  ambrosial  eau-de-Cologne  prepared 
by  an  Elysian  Constant,  as  he  studies  the  externals 
of  his  career  on  the  painted  canvas  of  Meissonier 
or  spells  out  his  political  message  from  the  printed 
page  of  M.  Paul  de  Cassagnac.  And  yet,  unlike 
many  teachers,  the  Emperor  apprehended  the  pur- 
port of  the  gospel  which  he  taught.  Napoleon  (it 
is  a  singular  fact)  was  a  Bonapartist.  But  he  did 
not  become  one  until  he  had  ceased  to  be  an  Emperor. 


THE  realities  of  his  career  have  become  almost 
indecipherably  obscured  beneath  the  martyrology 
and  miracles  of  the  Napoleonic  myth.  Scholastic 


4  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

decorum  confined  the  explanatory  exuberance  of 
an  Alexandrian  commentator  to  the  margin  of  his 
manuscript.  But  the  story  of  that  life  between  the 
years  1769  and  1821  is  a  mere  palimpsest  across  which 
the  romantics,  the  sentimentalists,  and  the  reaction- 
aries have  scrawled  their  distortions  of  the  original 
text. 

Few  careers  (unless  musicians  are  in  question) 
possess  any  interest  outside  the  narrow  circle  of 
relatives  and  curio-hunters  before  the  age  of  twenty 
is  reached.  The  early  years  of  their  subjects  are 
the  chosen  playground  of  imaginative  biographers, 
and  a  full  supply  of  pleasing  and  significant  incident 
has  always  been  stimulated  by  the  steady  demand 
of  those  sympathetic  students  who  are  perpetually 
eager  to  hear  their  little  hero  lisping  his  first  prayer, 
to  watch  his  tiny  fingers  straining  round  the  pommel 
of  his  father's  sword.  But  the  child  is  not,  except 
in  fables,  the  father  of  the  man ;  and  no  circumstance 
of  Napoleon's  boyhood  possesses  the  faintest  Euro- 
pean significance  beyond  the  fact,  distressing  doubt- 
less at  the  time  to  his  anxious  father  and  more 
regrettable  subsequently  to  the  populations  of  his 
fraternal  kingdoms  of  Spain,  Holland,  Naples,  and 
Westphalia,  that  he  came  of  a  large  family.  The 
family  lived  principally  upon  expectations  from  their 
father's  litigation  in  that  somewhat  unsatisfactory 
frame  of  mind  with  which  Dickens  has  familiarised 
his  readers,  and  in  a  still  Bleaker  House  in  Ajaccio 
Carlo  Buonaparte,  who  was  that  one  figure  in  life 
more  pathetic  than  a  sick  doctor  (for  he  was  a 
litigious  lawyer),  expected  a  judgment  shortly  in  an 
interminable  action  in  which  he  had  cited  as  respon- 
dents the  Order  of  Jesus  and  the  French  Crown. 


BONAPARTISM  5 

Such  judgments  are  rarely  delivered  in  the  lifetime 
of  the  parties;  and  when  the  plaintiff  died,  he  left 
little  to  his  widow  and  his  eight  children  beyond  this 
welter  of  red  tape  and  their  wits. 

The  boy's  education  exercised  even  less  than  the 
usual  lack  of  influence  upon  his  development,  since 
he  was  educated  for  the  army.  The  world  in 
Napoleon's  schooldays  was  full  of  that  vague  atmo- 
sphere of  Progress  which  is  the  invariable  indication 
of  a  stationary  age.  The  enfants  perdus  of  French 
drawing-rooms  were  volunteering  for  service  against 
the  English  in  Rhode  Island;  and  those  who  stayed 
at  home,  whilst  Lafayette  was  crusading  in  the 
singular  cause  of  American  independence,  were  learn- 
ing to  quote  Rousseau  and  Montesquieu  with  that 
facility  which  has  never  failed  well-bred  persons  in 
the  case  of  authors  whom  they  have  not  read.  But 
it  may  be  doubted  whether  any  breath  of  the  contem- 
porary movement  was  permitted  to  pass  the  walls  of 
the  academy  for  the  sons  of  gentlemen  in  which 
Napoleon  received  his  grounding  in  French  and  the 
rudiments  before  his  education  became  strictly 
professional. 

Graduating  in  the  paralysing  study  of  mathe- 
matics, he  obtained  the  commission  of  King  Louis 
XVI.  and  passed  out  of  adolescence  as  a  hatchet- 
faced  subaltern  in  the  Midi.  The  world  was  spinning 
interminably  down  the  long  groove  of  the  Eighteenth 
Century;  and  life,  as  the  young  gunner  shaded  his 
eyes  to  look  down  the  broad  avenue  of  his  prospects, 
must  have  seemed  to  hold  little  beyond  a  weary  alter- 
nation of  parades  on  the  dusty  drill-grounds  of  the 
south  and  polite  attentions  to  the  anaemic  denizens 
of  provincial  salons,  with  a  little  leave  in  Corsica  and 


6  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

a  little  leisure  for  the  annotation  of  Plutarch  or 
re-reading  of  Goethe  for  its  sole,  its  ghastly  relaxa- 
tions. But  one  month  and  a  day  before  his  twentieth 
birthday  a  Paris  crowd,  having  some  artillery,  went 
against  the  Bastille,  and  the  Revolution,  which  had 
hitherto  been  conducted  as  a  genteel  parliamentary 
charade  among  the  parterres  of  Versailles,  entered 
the  lives  of  twenty-five  millions  of  Frenchmen.  One 
of  them  was  a  starved-looking  young  man  in  a  garri- 
son town  with  an  uncertain  temper  and  an  Italian 
accent. 

The  lessons  which  Napoleon  learned  from  the 
Revolution  were  at  once  simpler  and  less  unsettling 
than  those  which  it  taught  to  his  more  impressionable 
contemporaries.  The  forcible  reconstruction  of  the 
French  system  by  the  men  of  the  First  Republic, 
from  which  the  world  has  learnt  so  much,  taught 
Napoleon  so  little ;  and  although  he  piously  muttered 
the  orthodox  incantations  of  the  blessed  Rousseau 
and  twirled  a  Jacobin  praying-wheel  with  the  rest 
of  his  generation,  he  retained  almost  to  the  last  the 
administrative  ideals  of  a  sergeant-major. 

His  contact  with  the  Revolution  left  him  with  an 
extreme  distaste  for  crowds.  That  tendency  is  in- 
herent in  most  orderly  minds  when  confronted  by 
the  incalculable  and  illogical  proceedings  of  large 
bodies  of  men,  although  it  is  corrected  for  some  by 
the  spectacle  of  their  own  oratorical  success — it  is 
so  difficult  to  believe  evil  of  one's  cheering  supporters. 
But  for  Napoleon  this  corrective  was  absent.  In 
spite  of  a  fashionable  armoury  of  classical  allusion 
and  a  literary  style  that  is  faintly  reminiscent  of 
the  political  platform,  he  was  a  poor  speaker,  and 
his  early  triumphs  before  the  Patriotic  Club  of 


BONAPARTISM  7 

Ajaccio  (whose  Jacobinism,  one  suspects,  was  some- 
times a  trifle  Babu,  and  where  a  Bonaparte  could 
always  command  the  respectful  applause  of  his 
relatives)  were  never  repeated  before  more  critical 
audiences  in  France  itself.  It  resulted  from  this 
deficiency  in  his  equipment  and  from  the  unfortunate 
nature  of  his  earliest  contacts  with  the  Revolution 
that  a  popular  assembly  became  an  object  of  intense 
distaste  to  Napoleon,  and  he  remained  always  the 
scared  subaltern  who  had  faced  a  country  crowd 
outside  Auxonne  in  the  days  when  he  still  wore  the 
King's  uniform.  His  military  instincts  had  been 
scandalised  by  a  mutiny  of  his  own  gunners  in  the 
first  summer  of  the  Revolution;  and  as  he  watched 
Danton's  republicans  sweeping  against  the  Tuileries 
in  1792,  the  policeman  in  him  could  find  no  kinder 
name  for  them  than  fla  vile  canadlle.'  Such  men 
can  never  be  practising  democrats;  and  it  was  not 
surprising  that  when  three  years  later  Barras  needed 
an  artillerist  to  blow  the  Parisians  off  the  streets, 
he  found  General  Bonaparte. 

The  second  impression  left  on  him  by  his  contact 
with  the  Revolution  was  a  contempt  for  civilians. 
His  first  experiences  of  mountain  warfare  on  the 
Riviera  in  the  wake  of  the  Representants  en  mission 
must  have  filled  him  with  a  professional  distaste  for 
gesticulating  parliamentarians  in  tricolour  sashes.  But 
he  learned  it  principally  in  the  drawing-rooms  of 
the  Directoire,  when  the  rushing  waters  of  1793  were 
flowing  muddily  through  the  shallows  of  1798.  A 
European  war  had,  as  usual,  washed  the  army  con- 
tractors into  Society,  and  they  enjoyed  a  freer  field 
than  usual  in  view  of  the  recent  execution  of  most 
of  the  people  who  might  have  snubbed  them.  The 


8  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

spectacle  of  their  purveyors  is  always  peculiarly 
exasperating  to  soldiers,  who  are  apt  to  recollect  the 
quality  of  the  stores  supplied,  and  polite  society 
under  the  Directoire  consisted  almost  entirely  of  such 
persons  with  a  slight  admixture  of  politicians.  These 
were  still  more  distasteful  to  Napoleon,  since  they 
were  either  rival  adventurers,  successful  public 
speakers,  or  academic  persons  of  a  reflective  habit 
vaguely  suggestive  of  the  Common  Room.  It  re- 
sulted that  Napoleon  felt  few  scruples  in  substituting 
military  monarchy  for  a  civilian  republic  by  succes- 
sive stages  of  violence  and  plebiscite,  although  his 
wife,  a  colonial  lady  whose  mild  ambitions  lay  in  the 
direction  of  a  salon,  would  have  been  more  easily 
contented  with  a  bourgeois  Republic  under  which 
Tallien  and  a  few  decorative  aides  de  camp  might 
have  grouped  themselves  solicitously  round  her  couch, 
whilst  Sieyes  in  one  corner  explained  the  draft  of  a 
new  constitution  to  a  circle  of  respectful  stockbrokers. 
But  Napoleon  regarded  civilian  accomplishments 
with  the  full  contempt  of  one  to  whom  they  have  been 
denied;  for  him  any  man  who  was  not  in  uniform 
must  be  either  a  sutler  or  an  agitator,  and  in  either 
case  his  proper  place  was  in  obscurity.  That  is  how 
the  French  citizens,  who  had  unmade  the  Monarchy, 
dwindled  into  the  deferential  supers  of  a  military 
pageant.  The  crowds  of  the  Revolution  became  the 
stage  crowds  of  the  Empire,  and  the  high-waisted 
civilian  of  1800  faded  inconspicuously  into  a  cheering 
background  across  which  his  masters,  the  soldiers, 
clanked  and  jingled  their  triumphant  way. 

But  the  military  intelligence  of  Napoleon  could 
apprehend  at  least  one  lesson  of  the  Revolution. 
Of  the  three  virtues  inculcated  by  the  new  revelation 


BONAPARTISM  9 

the  greatest  for  him  was  Equality.  Liberty  was 
demonstrably  bad  for  discipline,  and  Fraternity 
was  either  a  gesture  of  rhetoric  or  (worse  than  that) 
a  piece  of  feminine  sentimentality  wholly  inconsistent 
with  the  axiomatic  institution  of  war.  But  Equality 
was  a  sound  lesson  of  the  drill-ground.  One  could 
not  manoeuvre  a  troop  of  horse  in  which  each  rank 
enjoyed  a  peculiar  privilege,  and  the  nation  which 
made  equal  units  of  its  citizens  would  march  more 
promptly  to  its  master's  orders  than  any  old-world 
welter  of  castes  and  classes.  To  that  extent  and 
for  reasons  comprehensible  to  any  drill  sergeant 
Napoleon  was  an  egalitarian. 

But  with  that  exception  the  contribution  made  by 
the  Revolution  to  his  stock  of  ideas  was  strikingly 
small.  The  Jacobin  system  of  local  administration 
possessed  irresistible  attractions  for  a  disciplinarian 
and  a  trifle  of  loose  theory  about  direct  consultation 
of  the  will  of  the  people  proved  a  convenient  means 
of  eluding  the  control  of  its  representatives.  But 
apart  from  these  features  and  a  creditable  command 
of  the  Revolutionary  idiom  Napoleon  had  little  in 
common  with  the  men  of  the  First  Republic.  In 
regality  he  was  almost  completely  a  man  of  the 
Eighteenth  Century.  His  enlightenment  was  the 
enlightenment  of  Joseph  II.  His  secularism  was 
the  modish  anti-religion  of  the  days  when  Voltaire 
had  led  a  dainty  crusade  against  the  theological  in- 
elegance of  the  Middle  Ages.  He  would  have  been 
thoroughly  at  home  at  the  Court  of  Catherine  II. 

The  romantic  imagination  has  persistently  en- 
deavoured to  see  Napoleon  as  a  condottiere  of  the 
Renaissance  born  three  centuries  too  late.  But  no 
picturesque  character  of  the  past  could  be  less  in- 


10  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

dicative  of  the  modern  quality  of  his  tight-lipped 
persistence.  He  was,  as  most  men  are,  a  man  of 
the  type  admired  in  the  world  in  his  own  boyhood. 
In  its  adventure  the  career  of  Napoleon  has  all  the 
flavour  of  those  other  adventurers  of  the  Eighteenth 
Century  who  climbed  to  power  in  countries  where 
they  had  once  been  strangers,  of  Wall  the  Irishman 
who  became  first  minister  in  Spain,  of  his  predecessor 
the  Cardinal  Alberoni  whose  father  was  an  Italian 
gardener,  and  (strangest  of  all)  of  Ripperda  the 
Dutch  diplomatist  who  turned  first  Spaniard  to  be- 
come a  Duke  and  then  Moslem  to  become  Grand 
Vizier  to  the  Sultan  of  Morocco.  That,  and  not  the 
romantic  violence  of  Bartolommeo  Colleoni,  is  the 
stuff  latent  in  the  career  of  a  Corsican  gunner  who 
played  for  a  moment  with  the  idea  of  entering  the 
Turkish  service  and  then  made  himself  Emperor  of 
the  French.  And  in  its  ideals  of  monarchy  his  reign 
forms  an  apt  pendant  to  the  long  chain  of  genteel 
tyrannies  which  had  governed  Europe  in  the 
Eighteenth  Century.  The  true  parallel  to  the  first 
Empire  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  Caesars.  The  Em- 
peror's spiritual  home  was  not  on  the  Palatine,  but 
in  Potsdam  and  Schonbrunn.  His  models  lay  ready 
to  his  hand  in  the  Prussia  of  Frederick  the  Great 
and  the  Austria  of  Joseph  II.  The  Empire  was  an 
elaboration  of  the  typical  monarchy  of  the  Eighteenth 
Century,  and  Napoleon  was  the  last  (and  perhaps 
the  most  benevolent)  of  the  benevolent  despots. 

The  principles  of  his  foreign  policy  were  cast  in  a 
still  more  antique  mould.  It  fell  to  him  to  direct 
the  course  of  French  diplomacy  after  the  Republic 
had  established  itself  as  the  first  military  power  in 
Europe,  and  there  was  strikingly  little  in  the  treaties 


BONAPARTISM  11 

of  1797  or  1800  which  would  have  scandalised 
Frederick  the  Great  or  the  ministers  of  Maria  Theresa 
as  a  departure  from  Eighteenth  Century  statecraft. 
In  spite  of  a  profession  of  the  fashionable  faith  in  the 
doctrines  of  nationality  and  natural  frontiers,  they 
exhibited  the  bland  indifference  to  these  principles 
which  had  prevailed  in  Europe  for  centuries.  Their 
simplification  of  the  political  geography  of  Germany 
by  the  abolition  of  the  fragmentary  and  diminutive 
territories  of  the  Church  was  an  unconscious  prelude 
of  German  unity,  and  the  establishment  of  the  Italian 
republics  was  an  unintentional  contribution  to  the 
political  education  of  Italy.  But  the  conscious  acts 
of  Napoleonic  policy,  of  which  the  most  character- 
istic were  the  annexation  of  Belgium  and  the  sur- 
render of  Venice  to  the  Austrians,  were  in  perfect 
harmony  with  the  diplomatic  temper  of  the  century 
which  had  witnessed  the  First  Partition  of  Poland. 

The  Imperial  reconstruction  of  Europe  was  still 
more  ancient  in  its  flavour.  Indeed,  the  great  parti- 
tion of  the  Continent  between  the  Emperor  of  the 
French  and  the  Czar  of  Russia  resembled  nothing 
so  much  as  those  allocations  of  the  civilised  world 
with  which  the  successors  of  Julius  Caesar  diversified 
the  last  years  of  the  Roman  Republic.  The  Revolu- 
tion had  sent  polite  society  to  its  Plutarch;  but  it 
appeared  from  his  foreign  policy  that  the  Emperor 
had  devoted  more  study  to  his  life  of  Mark  Antony 
than  to  the  more  fashionable  figures  of  the  Gracchi. 
The  Empire  itself  was  indebted  for  much  of  its  decor 
to  models  that  were  only  a  few  centuries  less  antique, 
since  Napoleon  played,  like  all  amateur  historians, 
at  the  amiable  game  of  historical  parallel  and  was 
unduly  impressed  by  the  precedent  of  Charlemagne. 


12  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

One  looks  in  vain  through  this  welter  of  pastiche  and 
archaism  for  any  trace  of  modern  ideas.  The  doc- 
trines of  the  Revolution  found  a  becoming  place  in 
the  liturgy  of  Napoleonic  diplomacy.  But  except 
where  they  coincided  with  French  interests,  they 
were  rarely  permitted  to  emerge  from  the  area  of 
sonorous  repetition.  The  successive  annexations 
which  brought  the  Empire  to  its  greatest  extent 
in  the  years  preceding  the  Russian  expedition  of 
1812  displayed  the  completest  disregard  of  the  racial 
as  well  as  the  geographical  limits  of  France.  Her 
eastern  frontier,  which  the  most  exaggerated  demands 
of  Revolutionary  geographers  had  advanced  no  fur- 
ther than  the  Rhine,  was  traced  without  the  faintest 
justification  of  contemporary  theory  from  Liibeck 
to  Spezzia;  and  every  canon  of  nationalist  doctrine 
was  violated  by  the  annexation  of  Amsterdam,  the 
Hansa  Towns,  and  (by  a  vaguely  Carolingian 
gesture)  of  Rome  itself.  The  Napoleonic  rearrange- 
ment of  Germany  by  the  creation  of  the  Confederation 
of  the  Rhine  was  a  reminiscence,  almost  equally 
traditional,  of  French  ambitions  under  the  Cardinals. 
The  fashionable  terminology  of  the  day  was  adapted 
in  the  usual  manner  to  the  perennial  aims  of  French 
policy,  and  by  a  pleasing  irony  the  fruits  of  the 
Revolution  were  secured  to  France  by  political 
weapons  drawn  from  the  rusty  armoury  of  Richelieu. 
The  farrago  of  reaction  which  was  the  foundation 
of  the  Napoleonic  state-system  produced  a  remark- 
able inversion  of  roles  in  the  European  drama. 
Napoleon,  the  heir  and  legal  representative  of  the 
Revolution,  was  confronted  by  the  year  1812  with 
an  almost  universal  popular  insurrection.  The  Czar  of 
Russia  became  a  symbol  of  European  liberty.  King 


BONAPARTISM  13 

George  III.  commanded  the  undivided  allegiance 
of  his  subjects  in  a  war  of  European  independence. 
The  Bourbons  of  Spain  turned  leaders  of  revolt,  and 
the  Bourbons  of  France  could  outbid  Napoleon  in 
democracy  by  the  promise  of  a  constitutional  mon- 
archy. The  nations  of  Europe  turned  against  the 
Empire  its  own  doctrines  of  nationality  and  natural 
frontiers,  and  went  to  war  once  more  to  confine 
French  government  within  the  scientific  limits  of 
French  race  and  the  geography  of  France.  The 
reigning  Hohenzollern  raised  the  democratic  banner 
in  his  proclamation  'To  my  people,'  and  when  the 
reigning  Hapsburg  set  to  his  lips  the  trumpet  of 
nationalism,  the  walls  of  the  Napoleonic  citadel  reeled 
and  fell  in. 

An  odd  postscript  of  modernity  was  provided  by 
the  brief  adventure  of  the  Hundred  Days.  When 
the  Emperor  swept  into  Paris  from  Elba,  he  was 
forced  by  circumstances  into  an  attitude  which  was 
not  his  own.  If  the  Bourbons  were  to  be  excluded 
from  France,  it  could  only  be  done  by  a  more  popular 
government  than  theirs.  Louis  XVIII.  had  played 
the  Chart e:  Napoleon  doubled  and  played  the  Acte 
additionnel,  and  France  experienced  the  queer  sensa- 
tion of  receiving  a  Legislature  of  two  Houses,  liberty 
of  the  press,  and  a  mild  degree  of  ministerial  responsi- 
bility from  the  hands  of  the  most  uncompromising 
autocrat  in  Europe.  But  his  actions  were  not  spon- 
taneous, and  the  gesture  of  constitutional  monarchy 
which  granted  the  Constitution  of  1815  was  as 
unnatural  to  Napoleon  as  the  movements  of  a  sick 
man.  The  absolutism  of  the  Grand  Empire  of  1810 
had  been  the  true  expression  of  his  ideals.  The  un- 
certain sketch  of  a  Liberal  Empire  which  he  made 


14  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

in  1815  was  little  more  than  an  indication  of  his 
difficulties.  Leaving  it  half  drawn,  he  drove  out  of 
Paris  to  sweep  the  Prussians  across  the  Rhine  and 
the  English  into  the  sea.  He  failed;  and  sentenced, 
after  the  custom  of  that  day,  to  transportation,  he 
sailed  into  the  South  Atlantic, 

'like  some  rare  treasure  galleon, 
Hull  down,  with  masts   against  the  Western  hues.' 


II 

AT  St.  Helena  Napoleon  became  a  pretender  to  his 
own  throne;  and  in  this  position  of  greater  freedom 
and  less  responsibility  he  addressed  himself  with 
enthusiasm  to  that  sport  of  kings  in  exile,  the  drafting 
and  revision  of  his  manifesto.  The  alteration  of 
war  and  administration  in  which  he  had  lived  during 
the  Empire  left  him  with  little  leisure  for  the  elabora- 
tion of  political  doctrine.  He  had  been  far  too  busy 
being  Napoleonic  to  find  time  to  be  a  Bonapartist. 
But  on  his  island  he  had  time  enough  to  become  a 
doctrinaire,  and  St.  Helena  was  the  seed-bed  of 
Bonapartism.  An  emperor  who  is  his  own  Council 
of  Ministers  in  peace  and  his  own  General  Staff  in 
war  is  unlikely  to  leave  behind  him  any  considerable 
or  coherent  body  of  political  theory.  But  the  specu- 
lations for  which  the  Tuileries  had  no  place  were  a 
welcome  exercise  at  Longwood.  Napoleon  in  exile 
became  the  first  of  the  Bonapartists,  and  in  those 
hot  afternoons  of  dictation  he  laid  the  foundations 
of  the  Second  Empire. 

The  Emperor  had  held  the  centre  of  the  European 
stage  for  fifteen  years,  and  it  was  improbable  that  so 
experienced  a  performer  would  fail  to  appreciate 
the  dramatic  value  of  his  exile.  The  lights  which 
had  followed  him  across  Europe  were  to  be  swung 
on  to  his  rock  in  the  Atlantic,  and  one  can  almost 

15 


16  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

catch  the  tramp  of  the  scene-shifters  in  the  sudden 
drop  of  his  tone  from  the  pride  of  omnipotence  to 
the  resignation  of  defeat.  In  the  next  act  the  drums 
were  to  be  muffled,  and  in  a  subdued  glare  of  foot- 
lights the  lonely  Emperor  was  to  be  despised  and 
rejected  of  men. 

Napoleon  had  discovered  that  the  popularity  of 
novel  creeds  is  largely  derived  from  the  richness  of 
their  martyrology,  and  with  sound  judgment  he 
resolved  to  become  the  first  martyr  of  his  faith. 
Within  a  year  of  his  arrival  at  St.  Helena  he  was 
talking  of  a  Bonapartist  restoration  based  on  his 
own  martyrdom,  and  by  1817  that  acute  publicist 
had  scandalised  his  generals  with  a  cynical  apprecia- 
tion of  the  propagandist  value  of  the  Crucifixion: 
'If  Jesus  Christ  had  not  died  on  the  cross,  he  would 
never  have  been  worshipped  as  God.'  The  moral 
was  drawn  for  the  new  gospel  of  Bonapartism:  'If 
I  die  on  the  cross  and  my  son  lives,  all  will  be  well 
with  him.'  The  Imperial  crown  was  to  be  exchanged 
for  a  crown  of  thorns,  and  Napoleon  and  his  helpers 
on  the  island  set  to  work  a  trifle  clumsily  to  improvise 
a  new  Calvary.  Sir  Hudson  Lowe  found  himself 
cast  for  the  unsympathetic  part  of  Pilate,  and  the 
evangelists  of  Longwood  prepared  their  synoptic 
gospels  for  the  world. 

The  new  creed  had  now  its  martyrology.  It  re- 
mained to  provide  its  doctrine,  and  the  Emperor,  in 
the  words  of  his  step -daughter,  'arranged  his  life, 
his  defence,  and  his  glory  with  the  infinite  care  of  a 
dramatist  lavishing  work  on  his  fifth  act  and  elabo- 
rating every  detail  for  the  sake  of  the  final  apotheosis.' 
The  drama  which  had  been  left  unfinished  at  Water- 
loo was  to  be  provided  with  a  happy  ending  in  which 


BONAPARTISM  17 

a  younger  Bonaparte  sat  enthroned  amid  the  cheers 
of  a  happy  people,  whilst  the  founder  of  the  dynasty 
smiled  down  through  the  incense  upon  the  realisation 
of  his  dreams.  Napoleon's  work  at  St.  Helena  was 
much  more  than  a  crude  and  sentimental  gesture  of 
martyrdom.  It  was  the  first  propaganda  of 
Bonapartism. 

The  new  doctrine  was  designed  to  compete  in  the 
markets  of  European  opinion  with  the  Peace  of 
Vienna,  and  it  became  necessary  to  include  in  its 
composition  a  strong  admixture  of  those  liberal 
principles  which  had  been  violated  by  the  old-world 
diplomacy  of  Metternich  and  Castlereagh.  A  supply 
of  lofty  ideals  has  rarely  failed  the  critics  of  peace 
treaties;  and  if  Napoleon  II.  was  to  outbid  Louis 
XVIII.,  he  must  be  prepared  to  offer  democracy  to 
the  people  of  France  and  nationalism  to  the  popula- 
tions of  Europe.  It  became  the  business  of  Napoleon 
in  exile  to  demonstrate  that  these  principles  had  been 
the  political  tradition  of  his  House,  and  the  unfortu- 
nate circumstance  that  they  had  not  served  only  to 
send  him  more  eagerly  to  his  task. 

The  problem  which  confronted  those  aging  and 
irritable  men  in  their  farm-house  in  the  tropics  was 
the  adjustment  of  Napoleon's  record  to  the  novel 
exigencies  of  Bonapartist  doctrine,  and  it  became 
necessary, .  if  the  autocrat  of  1810  was  to  pass  for  a 
democrat  in  1820,  to  handle  the  facts  with  that 
peculiar  skill  which  a  master  of  English  prose  has 
admired  in  a  master  of  French  painting  under  the 
name  of  'a  marvellous  tact  of  omission.'  The  Em- 
peror's career  was  hastily  rearranged  so  as  to  catch 
the  high  lights  of  fashionable  theory,  and  the  long 
epic  of  his  rise  and  fall  became  the  mere  subject- 


18  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

matter  of  ingenious  exegesis.  The  material  was  often 
stubborn;  and  when  Napoleon  took  his  place  as  the 
first  author  of  Bonapartist  apologetics,  he  found  the 
Old  Testament  of  his  first  reign  singularly  barren  of 
helpful  texts  and  had  more  frequent  recourse  to  the 
milder  utterances  of  his  New  Testament  of  1815. 
One  might  catch  sometimes  an  aside  to  Gourgaud  in 
which  the  Emperor  confesses  his  frank  disgust  for 
the  democratic  expedients  to  which  he  had  been 
driven  by  the  exigencies  of  national  defence  after  the 
return  from  Elba.  But  in  the  main  the  figure  which 
it  became  the  business  of  Bonapartism  to  present  to 
the  world  was  the  Emperor  of  the  Hundred  Days. 
The  imagination  of  posterity  has  been  engaged  by 
a  more  impressive  figure  as  he  sits  above  the  thunder 
on  the  Napoleonic  Olympus,  holding  his  eagle,  wield- 
ing the  lightning,  surrounded  by  the  minor  divinities 
of  the  Imperial  mythology. 

'  Cannon  his  name, 
Cannon   his   voice,   he   came.' 

But  such  visions  are  unfriendly  to  prospects  of 
restoration  to  the  throne  of  a  war-weary  people; 
and  the  whole  effort  of  St.  Helena  was  directed  to- 
wards the  evocation  of  a  gentler  scene  in  which  the 
mild-eyed  legislator  of  1815  bent  a  perpetually 
attentive  ear  to  the  strictly  constitutional  promptings 
of  Benjamin  Constant.  The  prospect  was  bourgeois 
in  the  extreme.  But  now  all  the  world  had  turned 
civilian,  and  one  must  move,  if  one  meant  to  reach 
the  Tuileries,  with  the  times. 

The  Bonaparte  succession  was  precluded  by  the 
peace  treaties  of  Vienna.  It  followed  naturally  that 
the  doctrine  of  Bonapartism  must  contradict  upon 
every  European  problem  the  principles  on  which  that 


BONAPARTISM  19 

settlement  was  based.  The  Peace  of  Vienna  was, 
briefly,  the  negation  of  the  French  Revolution  by  the 
assembled  monarchies  of  Europe.  Bonapartism  was 
consequently  driven  to  the  odd  expedient  of  affirming 
the  principles  of  1789  in  the  name  of  the  man  who 
had  used  field  artillery  as  a  solvent  of  democracy  in 
1795,  and  the  Emperor  in  retirement  was  graciously 
pleased  to  recognise  in  himself  the  embodiment  of  the 
Revolution.  The  evidence,  apart  from  his  soldierly 
appreciation  of  the  virtues  of  Equality,  was  slender; 
but  the  facts  were  fused  in  the  white  heat  of  Napo- 
leon's new  enthusiasm  for  the  First  Republic.  The 
returning  Bourbons  had  repainted  the  lilies  on  the 
French  flag:  Bonapartism,  if  it  was  to  inherit  the 
future,  must  hoist  the  tricolour.  The  attempt  to 
detect  popular  tendencies  in  the  Grand  Empire  was 
heroic.  Autommarchi  was  assured  that  the  Emperor 
'consecrated  the  Revolution  and  infused  it  into  the 
laws,'  and  he  made  to  Dr.  O'Meara  a  still  more 
explicit  confession  of  his  secret  republicanism:  'I 
always  believed  that  true  sovereignty  resides  in  the 
people.  The  Imperial  government  was  a  sort  of 
Republic.'  If  it  was,  the  secret  had  been  admirably 
kept  by  Fouche  and  the  police.  The  real  truth 
slipped,  as  usual,  into  Gourgaud's  diary:  'It  is  my 
opinion,'  the  Emperor  admitted  one  day  in  1816,  'that 
a  constitution  would  not  suit  France,  which  is  an 
essentially  monarchical  country.  .  .  .  there  should  be 
no  legislative  assembly.'  Napoleon  had  inherited  the 
national  energy  of  the  Revolution  and  had  employed 
it  to  repel  the  machinery  of  the  Empire.  But  the 
engineer  who  canalises  a  great  stream  and  harnesses 
it  to  his  power-house  cannot  always  claim  credit  for 
the  rush  of  its  waters. 


20  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

The  Emperor's  claim  upon  Liberal  gratitude  be- 
came a  shade  fantastic  when  it  was  founded  upon 
a  sympathetic  examination  of  his  record  during  the 
Hundred  Days,  and  posterity  was  invited  to  forget 
that  the  First  Consul  had  violated  the  last  parliament 
of  the  Revolution  with  infantry  in  a  grateful  realisa- 
tion of  his  embarrassed  constitutionalism  in  1815. 
It  must  have  sometimes  occurred  to  Napoleon  that 
if  he  had  been  a  Bonapartist  in  1810,  he  would  have 
made  peace  with  the  world  and  founded  a  dynasty. 
The  evangelists  of  St.  Helena  suggested  that  he  had 
found  the  light  on  his  return  from  Elba  and  searched 
hopefully  in  the  constitution  of  1815  for  those  germs 
of  Liberalism  which  had  been  so  distressingly  absent 
from  the  Constitution  of  1804.  But  they  were  con- 
stantly discouraged  by  the  Emperor's  obstinate  can- 
dour in  confessing  at  intervals  that  he  had  not  meant 
a  word  of  it.  He  frequently  admitted  to  the  little 
circle  that  if  he  had  won  a  victory  in  Belgium,  he 
would  have  abolished  the  Chambers  on  his  return  to 
Paris ;  and  this  inconvenient  spirit  of  the  confessional 
even  impelled  him  to  assure  Admiral  Cockburn  that 
he  had  assumed  a  Liberal  tone  in  1815  'simply  be- 
cause my  situation  at  that  particular  moment  made  it 
necessary  for  me  to  yield  to  popular  feeling  on  that 
point.'  An  equal  sensitiveness  to  public  opinion 
dictated  the  draft  of  a  constitution  which  he  produced 
in  1820  for  the  benefit  of  Napoleon  II.  But  one  can 
hear  the  undertone  of  autocracy  through  the  pious 
murmur  of  its  Liberalism,  and  the  exalted  claim  of 
the  democratic  Bonapartists  that  Napoleon  was  the 
Messiah  of  the  Revolution  must  remind  many  students 
of  religion  that  there  have  been  false  Messiahs. 

An  effort  of  almost  equal  heroism  was  made  in  the 


BONAPARTISM  21 

scriptures  of  St.  Helena  to  demonstrate  that  the 
Emperor  had  been  a  practising  nationalist.  The 
settlement  of  Vienna,  conceived  by  Austrian  states- 
men in  the  Austrian  capital,  naturally  transgressed 
in  every  detail  the  doctrine  of  nationality;  and  if 
the  European  opposition  thrown  up  by  the  peace 
treaties  was  to  be  mobilised  in  support  of  the  Bona- 
parte succession,  the  history  of  the  Empire  must  be 
ransacked  for  instances  of  Napoleon's  conformity 
with  the  fashionable  doctrine.  The  little  group  of 
embittered  chauvinists  on  the  island  was  startled  by 
disquisitions  upon  the  Emperor's  affection  for  the 
Germans,  the  Italians,  the  Greeks,  the  Poles,  and  the 
Spaniards,  which  had  been  kept  a  profound  secret 
from  the  subject  populations  of  the  Empire.  Even 
Iceland,  whose  claim  to  independence  had  rarely 
been  refused  by  the  enemies  of  England,  was  admitted 
to  the  fast  widening  circle  of  his  sympathy;  and 
Napoleon  emerged  from  the  reflections  of  his  exile 
with  the  conviction,  which  in  the  minds  of  Germans, 
Englishmen,  and  Spaniards  had  been  fatal  to  the 
continued  existence  of  his  Empire,  that  'there  are 
certain  desires  with  regard  to  nationality  which  must 
sooner  or  later  be  gratified'  and  that  the  first  of  those 
desires  is  an  appetite  for  national  self-government  or 
(to  give  to  it  its  more  impressive,  Bostonian  name) 
self-determination.  The  trace  of  Napoleon's  frontiers 
had  followed  at  some  points  the  scientific  lines  of 
European  racial  divisions.  But  his  nationalism,  which 
was  frankly  fortuitous  before  Waterloo,  became  dog- 
matic at  St.  Helena. 

The  Empire  was  now  rehabilitated  in  French  eyes 
by  the  fashionable  democracy  of  its  principles,  and 
its  European  popularity  was  ensured  by  a  still  more 


22  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

modish  sympathy  with  'nations  struggling  to  be  free.' 
It  remained  to  reassure  a  nervous  French  electorate 
upon  its  prospects  of  continued  home  life.  The 
male  population  of  France  in  1816  had  only  recently 
become  domesticated,  and  it  had  no  desire  to  return 
to  the  colours.  But  when  it  inquired  apprehensively 
by  what  coincidence  the  government  of  so  enlightened 
a  dynasty  had  been  a  period  of  uninterrupted  Europ- 
ean war  conducted  upon  an  unprecedented  scale,  the 
Emperor  was  ready  with  an  answer  and  demonstrat- 
ed with  a  wealth  of  quotation  and  argument  that  the 
peace  of  the  world  had  been  continually  sacrificed  to 
the  insatiable  ambition  of  the  Houses  of  Hapsburg 
and  Hanover,  whose  ministers  had  forced  France  into 
war  after  war  with  an  energy  only  equalled  by  the  hy- 
pocrisy with  which  they  denounced  Napoleon  as  the 
cause.  fL 'Empire3  (the  words  which  were  to  be 
spoken  by  the  nephew  at  Bordeaux  were  formed  by 
the  uncle  at  St.  Helena  thirty  years  before)  'c'est 
la  paw* 

The  great  Bonapartist  of  St.  Helena  had  pro- 
pounded his  political  doctrine  of  democracy,  nation- 
alism, and  peace.  It  was  elaborated  in  those 
interminable  talks  which  alone  stood  between 
Napoleon  and  madness,  until  at  last  in  a  great  storm 
of  the  wind  the  Emperor,  having  upon  his  lips  the 
name  of  a  military  rank  or  (as  some  say)  of  a  dead 
woman,  died  also. 


Ill 

THE  destruction  of  the  Empire  left  an  odd  gap  in 
France,  and  it  was  hardly  filled  by  the  return  of 
the  Bourbons.  The  appearance  in  public  life  of  large 
numbers  of  elderly  gentlemen,  speaking  with  the 
accent  of  the  last  century  and  gloomily  disapproving 
of  the  generation  with  which  they  found  themselves 
surrounded,  was  an  inadequate  compensation  for  the 
disappearance  of  those  bronzed  and  booted  young 
men  of  the  Empire  who  had  ridden  into  every  capital 
in  Europe.  It  cannot  have  been  enlivening  to  be 
governed  by  persons  who  regarded  every  achieve- 
ment of  the  past  thirty  years  as  a  manifestation  of 
original  sin;  and  for  all  the  memories  which  it  con- 
tained of  the  conscription  and  the  invasion,  the  roll 
of  the  Emperor's  drums  must  have  seemed  a  friendly 
sound,  when  it  was  compared  with  the  dry  rustle  of 
the  parchments  as  the  King's  ministers  searched  them 
for  royal  precedents. 

The  Restoration  of  Louis  XVIII.  was  as  depress- 
ing as  any  other  triumph  of  age  over  youth.  It  seemed 
to  a  generation  which  had  served  the  guns  at  Wagram 
and  stood  in  the  last  trenches  on  Montmartre  that 
the  old  men  and  the  priests  and  the  Bretons  with 
their  stupid  faces  had  been  right  after  all.  The  new 
world  which  Goethe  had  seen  looming  up  through 

23 


24  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

the  mist  at  Valmy  wavered  and  melted  away  before 
the  confused  gesture  of  a  Peace  Conference,  and  in 
France  it  was  as  though  men  came  indoors  out  of  the 
strong  sunlight  of  the  Empire  to  a  long,  grey  after- 
noon of  deportment  and  gentility  about  the  house. 
The  royal  troops  marched  decorously  once  more  be- 
hind the  white  flag  and  the  lilies;  King  Louis  sat 
on  his  throne  again;  and  the  Eighteenth  Century 
seemed  to  have  resumed  its  interminable  course. 

It  was  a  queer  time,  in  which  half  the  world  was 
trying  to  forget  that  it  had  spent  the  best  years  of 
its  life  by  the  waters  of  Babylon  in  teaching  dancing 
and  the  irregular  verbs  to  the  young  subjects  of 
King  George  III.,  whilst  the  other  half  was  almost 
ashamed  to  remember  that  it  had  trailed  a  musket 
across  the  Alps  to  Marengo  or  charged  shouting 
through  the  smoke  of  Mercer's  guns  against  the 
British  squares  at  Waterloo.  So  long  as  French 
politics  were  directed  by  that  generation,  there  was 
little  disposition  to  find  fault  with  the  unimpressive 
exterior  of  Louis  XVIII.  and  the  blameless  tedium 
of  his  ministers.  The  lives  of  most  Frenchmen  had 
been  sufficiently  eventful  before  1815  for  them  to 
acquiesce  with  relief  in  the  sedative  provided  by  the 
restoration;  and  France,  which  has  more  generally 
regarded  parlimentary  institutions  as  a  source  of 
scandal  than  as  a  form  of  government,  sat  comfort- 
ably back  in  the  public  galleries  of  the  Chamber  to 
enjoy  the  deep  notes  of  MM.  Guizot  and  Royer- 
Collard.  Faint  echoes  of  the  Emperor  drifted  up 
out  of  the  South  Atlantic.  Gaunt  old  men  (one  aged 
rapidly  on  the  road  from  Moscow  to  the  Beresina), 
who  had  once  been  the  masters  of  Europe  when  they 
trailed  the  sabretache  of  the  Cuirassiers  or  wore  the 


BONAPARTISM  25 

schapska  of  the  Lancers  of  the  Guard,  tilted  hats  over 
their  eyes  and  drew  up  rickety  chairs  in  provincial 
cafes  to  mutter  about  'the  Man'  and  'the  Son  of  the 
Man.'  There  was  a  feeble  sputter  of  insurrection. 
But  Napoleon  went  to  his  grave  dans  une  petite  vallee 
d'une  lie  deserte,  sous  un  saule  pleureur;  and  whilst 
the  old  King  lived,  France  was  profoundly  and 
excusably  indifferent  to  the  fascinations  of  political 
experiment. 

This  temper  prevailed  among  the  men  who  had 
returned  home  from  the  two  exiles  of  the  emigration 
and  the  conscription  until  they  grew  old  and  faded 
out  of  politics.  But  after  the  angularity  of  Charles 
had  succeeded  in  1824  to  the  gentler  curves  of  Louis 
XVIII.,  a  new,  more  incalculable  generation  began 
to  come  of  age,  and  the  children  of  the  First  Empire 
gathered  in  the  wings,  prepared  to  shoulder  their 
way  on  to  the  stage  of  French  affairs.  The  uneasy 
temper  of  the  age  was  described  a  few  years  later, 
when  Alfred  de  Musset  set  down  the  Confession  d'un 
Enfant  du  Siecle:  'During  the  wars  of  the  Empire, 
whilst  husbands  and  brothers  were  away  in  Germany, 
anxious  mothers  brought  to  birth  a  hectic,  sickly, 
nervous  generation.  Conceived  between  two  battles, 
schooled  with  the  sound  of  rolling  drums  in  their  ears, 
boys  in  their  thousands  eyed  one  another  gloomily, 
as  they  tried  over  their  frail  muscles.  At  intervals 
their  fathers  appeared  from  the  bloodshed,  held 
them  to  the  gold  braid  on  their  breasts,  set  them 
down,  and  to  horse  again.' 

These  young  men,  round  whose  cradles  the  slim 
draped  Victories  of  the  Empire  had  sounded  upon 
trumpets  the  names  of  Austerlitz,  lena,  Eylau, 
Friedland,  Wagram,  were  the  new  factor  in  French 


26  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

politics.  Peace  is  never  in  greater  danger  than  when 
a  generation  grows  up  which  has  not  in  its  own  person 
known  war;  and  as  the  children  of  1810  grew  up 
into  the  young  men  of  1825,  their  imagination  played 
fitfully  round  the  glory  of  their  fathers.  In  literary 
taste  they  were  Romantics.  In  politics  (since  it 
seemed  tragic  that  old  men  should  govern  when  all 
the  world  was  young)  they  were  Liberal.  But  im- 
perceptibly their  politics  became  touched  with  ro- 
mance as  they  began  to  regard  the  Empire  in  kindly 
retrospect.  Napoleon  had  been  a  name  at  which 
the  men  of  1816,  according  to  their  politics,  stood  to 
attention  or  looked  nervously  behind  them.  Grad- 
ually the  sharp  outlines  of  that  little  figure  melted 
into  the  distance,  and  the  Imperial  scene  began  to 
glow  for  the  men  of  1825  through  a  gentle  haze  of 
romance. 

The  revulsion  at  this  stage  was  merely  sentimental. 
Bonapartism,  outside  the  dwindling  ranks  of  old 
irreconcilables,  was  not  yet  adopted  by  any  consider- 
able body  of  Frenchmen  as  a  political  faith.  The 
Emperor  was  dead,  and  Napoleon  II.  could  hardly 
be  said  to  be  alive.  Few  eyes  turned  eastward 
towards  Vienna,  where  the  dim  figure  of  a  pale 
young  man,  whom  the  imagination  of  a  poet  and 
the  genius  of  a  great  actress  have  conspired  to  present 
to  posterity  as  a  stoutish  woman  in  a  white  uniform 
with  a  queer,  haunting  voice,  might  be  seen  moving 
vaguely  behind  the  ordered  solemnity  of  the  Austrian 
Court.  Even  Beranger,  so  responsive  always  to  the 
requirements  of  his  public,  felt  no  deeper  emotion 
at  this  spectacle  of  predestined  futility  than  the  mild 
irony  which  inspired  Les  Deux  Cousins,  ou  Lettre 
d'un  petit  Roi  a  un  petit  Due: 


BONAPARTISM  27 

'  Les  rois  m'adoraient  au  berceau, 
Let  rois  m'adoraient  au  berceau; 
Et  cependant  je  suis  a  Fienne!' 

This  lyric  of  gentle  sympathy  was  hardly  a  marching 
song  to  which  a  prince  might  come  to  his  own  again. 
But  the  Emperor  himself  was  a  more  inspiring 
subject  for  young  poets  under  a  dull  dynasty,  and 
the  declamatory  possibilities  of  his  career  seemed 
inexhaustible.  Victor  Hugo  invoked 

'  gloire  au  mditre  supreme! 
Dieu  meme  a  sur  son  front  pose  le  diademe.' 

His  imagination  was  excited  by  'Toujours  Lui! 
Lui  partout/  Even  Beranger,  who  had  found  a 
more  powerful  vehicle  in  the  chanson,  was  inspired 
to  an  ode  of  fashionable  sensibility  by  the  Emperor's 
death: 

'  Sa  gloire  est  la  comme  le  phare  immense 
D'un   nouveau  monde   et   d'un   monde   trop   vieux.' 

But  his  real  contribution  to  the  renascence  of  the 
Imperial  legend  was  made  in  those  simpler  verses 
which  both  recorded  and  stimulated  the  traditional 
Bonapartism  of  the  countryside.  It  was  the  peasant 
who  had  felt  most  acutely  the  return  of  the  gentry 
under  the  Restoration,  and  when  the  shadows  of  his 
new  masters  fell  across  the  cottage  window,  the  ex- 
soldier  of  the  Imperial  armies  was  half  inclined  to 
regret  the  past.  Napoleon  became  a  name  for  all 
the  fine  freedom  and  brave  endeavour  of  the  past; 
and  that  odd  alliance  between  the  Emperor  and  the 
Liberal  cause  to  which  all  his  work  at  St.  Helena 
had  been  directed  was  realised  by  the  chansonnier 
of  the  Roi  d'  Yvetot.  At  that  gentle  music  the  cold 


28  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

figure  of  Caesar  came  alive  and  stepped  down  from 
his  niche,  and  the  conqueror  of  the  world  became  the 
people's  friend. 

'  On  parlera  de  sa  gloire 

Sous  la  chaume  bien  longtemps, 
L'humble  toil,  dans  cinquante  ans, 
Ne  connaitra  plus  d'autre  histoire. 

Le  peuple  encor  le  revere 

Oui,  le  revere. 
Parlez-nous  de  lui,  grand'mere, 

Parlez-nous  de  lui. 

Mes  enfants,  dans  ce  village, 
Suivi  de  rots,  il  passa. 


II  avail  petit  chapeau 
Avec  redingote  grisc. 
Pres  de  lui  je  me  troublai: 
II  me  dit:  Bonjour  ma  chere. 

Bonjour  ma  chere. 
— //  vous  a  parle,  grand'mere! 

II  vous  a  parle!' 

That  is  how  Napoleon  passed  from  history  into  folk- 
lore. 

A  similar  movement  steadily  became  noticeable 
in  the  printsellers'  shop-windows.  During  the 
Empire  his  representations  had  been  strictly  con- 
fined to  a  somewhat  dreary  canon  of  official  pictures. 
Napoleon  was  to  be  seen  in  large  canvases  crowning 
his  Empress  with  a  frozen  gesture  or  distributing 
eagles  to  his  legions  with  a  statuesque  immobility 
which  owed  almost  more  to  David  than  David  him- 
self owed  to  the  antique.  Court  painters  posed  him 
bare-headed  in  the  centre  of  obsequious  princes  and 


BONAPARTISM  29 

Grands  Cordons,  extending  an  inexpressive  hand  of 
friendship  or  clemency  to  the  Emperor  Francis,  the 
Czar  of  Russia,  the  burghers  of  Madrid,  or  the  Queen 
of  Prussia;  whilst  their  more  martial  colleagues 
sent  him  caracoling  across  battle-fields  which  they 
had  never  visited  with  a  complete  lack  of  horsemanship 
which  is  only  attainable  by  a  lay  figure  in  a  studio. 
The  Emperor  was  depicted  upon  every  conceivable 
occasion  of  civil  dignity  and  military  triumph  without 
any  deviation  from  his  Imperial  imperturbability, 
whether  the  foreground  was  obstructed  by  a  con- 
quered people  or  the  French  dead.  Indeed,  almost 
the  sole  concession  to  human  weakness  which  it  was 
permissible  to  record  in  this  solemn  series  was  his 
unforgettable  wound  in  the  right  foot  at  Ratisbon, 
borne  bravely  in  a  circle  of  solicitous  shakoes  and  with 
the  unwounded  foot  in  the  stirrup  of  that  incom- 
parably, that  incredibly  Arab  steed. 

Adversity  in  the  field  checked  the  majestic  flow 
of  official  art,  and  Napoleonic  portraiture  entered 
upon  a  new  phase  in  defeat.  The  symbolic  possibili- 
ties of  the  lonely  Emperor  on  his  distant  rock  were 
exhausted  with  pitiless  persistence.  But  the  effec- 
tive appeal  of  the  Imperial  legend  in  art  was  not  made 
by  the  sea,  the  sunset,  the  reflective  eye.  It  was 
couched  in  the  less  tortured  perspective  and  the 
simpler  scenes  of  the  military  draughtsmen  of  the 
Restoration.  They  began  in  the  mere  depiction  of 
uniforms  and  a  simple  enjoyment  of  crowded  fore- 
grounds in  which  the  big,  bearded  Pioneers  swung 
along  eight  abreast  and  the  massed  drums  brought 
on  the  Guard,  with  the  long  line  of  level  bayonets 
rising  and  falling  to  the  swing  of  the  bearskins  and 
the  mounted  field-officers  riding  like  tall  ships  along 


30  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

the  stream.  Avoiding  the  stately  banalities  of 
official  art,  Raffet  and  Bellange  brought  the  crowded 
battle-fields  of  the  Empire  within  range  of  the  normal 
imagination  or  appealed  to  sentimental  reminiscence 
with  the  invisible  sweep  of  great  cavalcades  past  the 
dead  Emperor  at  midnight,  or  the  resurrection  of 
lost  legions  to  the  roll  of  a  dead  man's  drum. 

'C'est  la  grande  Revue 
Qu'aux  Champs  filysees, 
A  I'heure  de  minuit 
Tient  le  Cesar  dechu.' 

But  while  they  were  accomplishing  this  in  their 
more  crowded  canvases,  their  smaller  works  began 
to  do  for  Napoleon's  memory  something  of  the  service 
which  had  been  performed  for  it  in  verse  by  Beranger. 
His  praetorians,  whom  an  indignant  countryside 
under  the  Restoration  had  been  apt  to  set  violently 
about  as  'brigands/  were  displayed  by  Charlet  in 
an  endearing  light  of  mild  comedy.  Their  hardships, 
their  gallantries,  their  potations,  and  their  heroism 
reinstated  them  in  the  national  affection;  and  slowly 
the  grognard  with  his  growling  repartee,  his  bear- 
skin and  his  long  moustache  climbed  to  a  popularity 
which  in  a  more  recent  war  has  been  earned  by  a 
still  older  soldier  with  a  still  more  ragged  moustache. 
The  Emperor  himself  was  popularised  by  a  more  hu- 
man attitude,  as  the  laurels  and  the  purple  were  sent 
back  to  the  costumier's  and  he  assumed  a  more  natural 
dress : 

'//  avait  petit  chapeau 
Avec  redingote  grise.' 

The  smirk  of  official  portraiture  passed  from  his 
lips,  and  he  was  seen,  hunched  and  anxious,  by  the 


BON  AP  AUTISM  31 

camp-fires  of  1814.  The  little  figure  stepped  out 
of  the  formal  surroundings  and  heavy  gilt  frames  of 
command  portraits  into  reality;  and  the  change 
carried  his  image  into  every  little  room  in  France. 
He  galloped  along  cheering  lines  or  watched  the 
gun-fire  with  folded  arms.  Tall  Grenadiers  were 
called  out  of  the  ranks  to  have  their  ears  pinched 
and  to  exchange  memories  of  the  campaign  of  Italy. 
Sleepy  sentries  awoke  to  find  the  Emperor  on  guard. 
Napoleon  himself  confessed  to  human  frailty  in 
innumerable  snatches  of  sleep  before  Austerlitz. 
Cottagers  entertained  him  unawares,  and  artillery- 
men stood  aside  to  watch  the  master-gunner  lay  a 
gun  at  Montereau.  Gradually  the  spell  was  broken, 
and  the  dead  Emperor  came  to  life  on  every  wall  as 
the  saviour,  the  guardian,  and  the  hope  of  his  country. 

A  deeper  note  of  pictorial  Bonapartism  was  struck 
in  the  eccentric  blend  of  piety  and  patriotism  which 
inspired  a  popular  engraving  of  Saint  Napoleon, 
Martyr'  and  displayed  the  canonised  Emperor  in 
the  Roman  pallium  and  short,  curling  beard  of  one 
of  Diocletian's  Christians,  holding  the  palm  in  one 
hand  and  mildly  deprecating  with  the  other  the  be- 
stowal of  a  wreath  by  a  foreshortened  angel.  But 
sometimes  mere  hagiology  proved  insufficient,  and 
Napoleon  passed  into  the  more  rarefied  atmosphere 
of  theology  itself.  A  grateful  Church  had  repeated- 
ly acknowledged  his  services  to  religion;  and  Bel- 
lange  lent  a  Napoleonic  flavour  to  religion  itself, 
when  his  peasant  pointed  to  a  familiar  outline  and 
exclaimed  to  the  village  priest:  'Tenez,  voyez-vous, 
Monsieur  le  Cure,  pour  moi  le  v'la  le  pere  eternel.' 
Bonapartism  could  fly  no  higher. 

The  drift  of  the  Liberals  towards  Bonapartism 


32  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

was  determined  by  the  new  presentation  of  the  Im- 
perial legend  in  art  and  letters,  and  it  was  without 
infidelity  to  their  master  that  his  old  officers  found 
themselves  brigaded  with  the  young  rioters  of  1830. 
That  sudden,  summer  insurrection  jerked  Charles  X. 
off  his  throne;  and  by  the  effort  of  the  young  men 
who  ached  to  follow  the  new  ways  the  slow,  grinding 
machinery  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  was  stopped 
for  ever. 

The  Orleans  monarchy  endeavoured  for  eighteen 
years  to  satisfy  the  needs  of  France.  A  desperate 
attempt  was  made  to  flatter  the  national  vanity  by 
restoring  some  of  the  national  playthings.  The 
tricolour  flag  fluttered  once  more  to  the  masthead. 
A  forward  foreign  policy  recalled  the  brave  days 
before  the  Peace  of  Vienna.  And  Napoleon's  statue 
dominated  Paris  again  from  the  top  of  the  Colonne 
de  la  Grande  Armee.  But  in  its  effort  to  be  Napo- 
leonic without  a  Bonaparte  the  reign  of  Louis 
Philippe  resembled  nothing  so  much  as  a  production 
of  Hamlet  by  a  company  which  not  only  omitted  the 
Prince  but  rarely  got  beyond  Rosencrantz  and  Guild- 
enstern. 

The  enunciation  of  the  Imperial  legend  rose,  under 
official  encouragement,  to  a  crescendo.  Poets  and 
historians  became  incapable  of  other  topics,  and 
the  Napoleonic  illustrators  flooded  the  bookshops 
with  pictorial  Bonapartism.  The  shadowy  reign  of 
Napoleon  II.  closed,  as  that  dim  light  flickered  out 
at  Schonbrunn  in  1832.  But  in  Paris  men  were  still 
quoting  the  full-mouthed  eloquence  of  Victor  Hugo's 
Ode  a  la  Colonne,  and  at  half  the  theatres  French 
audiences  were  staring  open-mouthed  whilst  round- 
shouldered  actors  in  grey  overcoats  took  snuff, 


BONAPARTISM  33 

pinched  ears,  or  raked  the  footlights  with  that  single 
field-glass.  Thiers  passed  from  the  history  of  the 
Revolution  to  the  Consulate  and  Empire.  The 
Memorial  de  Sainte-Helene  appeared  with  Charlet's 
drawings,  and  Raff et  illustrated  a  mediocre  Histoire 
de  Napoleon.  Whilst  the  King's  ministers  were 
struggling  with  the  Egyptian  question,  epic  poets 
were  collaborating  to  produce  Napoleon  en  figypte 
in  eight  cantos  with  decorations  by  Vernet  and 
Bellange;  and  Heine  found  Napoleonic  engravings 
on  every  wall  in  France. 

This  queer  fever,  which  produced  almost  the  whole 
mass  of  Imperial  bric-a-brac  now  extant,  raged  in 
verse,  prose,  politics,  and  statuary;  and  Louis  Phi- 
lippe set  solemnly  about  to  cure  it  by  a  desperate 
homoeopathy.  The  Orleanist  King  made  himself  the 
first  Bonapartist  in  France.  The  Arc  de  Triomphe 
was  completed  and  consecrated  to  the  myth  of  the 
Emperor.  The  Chateau  of  Versailles  became  a  mu- 
seum of  Imperial  battle-pictures  and  was  dedicated  in 
great  letters  'a  toutes  les  gloires  de  la  France/  And 
by  a  supreme  gesture  of  Bonapartism  the  frigate 
Belle-Poule,  commanded  by  the  Prince  de  Joinville, 
sailed  in  1840  to  St.  Helena  to  carry  out  the  second 
clause  of  the  Emperor's  will :  f  Je  desire  que  mes  cen- 
dres  resposent  sur  les  bords  de  la  Seine,  au  milieu  de  ce 
peuple  francais  que  j'ai  tant  aime.  They  brought 
him  into  Paris  on  a  November  day  of  frost  and  bright 
sunshine;  and  as  Napoleon  passed  to  the  Invalides 
there  was  a  great  cry  of  'Five  I'Empereur!' 


THE  PRINCE 


35 


THE  PRINCE 
I 

ON  an  April  morning  in  1808  there  was  French  gun- 
fire along  the  Pyrenees.  A  son  had  been  born  in 
Paris  to  the  Queen  of  Holland,  and  the  Emperor  was 
in  Bayonne.  The  heads  of  the  French  columns  were 
thrusting  down  through  the  passes  into  Spain  in  the 
first  movement  of  the  Peninsular  War,  and  on  the 
day  that  the  child  was  born  King  Ferdinand  VII. 
drove  into  Bayonne  by  the  great  south  road  from 
Irun.  That  night  he  dined  with  Napoleon  and 
received  in  his  lodgings  after  dinner  a  message, 
brought  by  General  Savary,  that  the  Emperor  felt, 
on  consideration,  that  the  House  of  Bourbon  should 
cease  to  reign. 

The  boy  was  born  in  the  dark  hours  of  a  Wednes- 
day morning  (it  was  the  20th  of  the  month).  But 
it  was  not  until  the  fourth  day  that  the  news  came 
from  Paris  to  Bayonne.  Napoleon  found  time  to 
write  a  few  lines  and  pass  them  to  a  secretary: 

'Ma  Fille,  j'apprends  que  vous  etes  heureusement 
accouchee  d'un  gargon.  J'en  ai  eprouve  la  plus  vive  joie. 
II  ne  me  reste  plus  qu'a  etre  tranquillise  et  a  savoir  que 
vous  vous  portez  bien.  Je  suis  etonne  que  dans  une 
lettre  du  20,  que  m'ecrit  I'archichancelier,  il  ne  m'en 
disc  rien.  NAPOLEON/ 

And  all  along  the  frontier  the  salutes  boomed  up  the 
valleys  of  the  Pyrenees. 

37 


II 

HE  was  the  third  child  of  an  unhappy  marriage. 
But  the  news  of  his  birth  gave  pleasure  almost  every- 
where except  to  his  ailing  and  indifferent  father. 
Louis  Bonaparte,  King  of  Holland,  might  have  been 
a  happier  man  if  he  had  found  himself  in  a  less  re- 
markable family.  He  presents  a  vague  and  shifting 
outline  against  the  clear-cut  background  of  the 
Bonapartes.  There  is  an  odd  flavour  of  modernity 
about  his  nerves,  his  diffidence,  his  introspection, 
his  perpetual  cures  which  hardly  accords  with  those 
bright  figures  of  romance;  and  as  he  circulates  nerv- 
ously among  the  thrusting  brothers  and  exuberant 
sisters  of  the  Imperial  family,  he  has  the  air  almost 
of  an  incautious  Hellenist  introduced  suddenly  into 
the  company  of  some  of  the  more  primitive  members 
of  the  House  of  Atreus.  His  career  was  one  long 
struggle  waged  by  his  nerves  against  his  promotion. 
He  had  worked  at  his  schoolbooks  in  the  little  lodg- 
ings in  the  Midi  where  Lieutenant  Bonaparte  pol- 
ished his  buttons  and  read  history.  But  the  tense 
atmosphere  of  that  hired  room  at  Valence  can  hardly 
have  been  congenial  to  a  youth  who,  as  he  informed 
the  grateful  author  some  years  later,  wept  copious- 
ly over  the  mild  sentiment  of  Paul  et  Virginie.  The 
elder  brother,  who  had  paid  his  school  bills  out  of  a 
subaltern's  pay,  taught  him  the  rudiments  of  soldier- 
ing in  the  campaign  of  Italy.  He  was  a  quiet  boy, 
combining  in  an  unusual  degree  physical  courage 

88 


THE  PRINCE  39 

with  taciturnity;  and  as  the  family  got  strenuously 
on  in  the  world,  the  young  Louis  seemed  to  sink 
steadily  deeper  into  himself.  It  was  an  age  in  which 
dyspepsia  was  frequently  mistaken  for  intellect;  and 
when  the  First  Consul  brought  peace  to  France  and 
set  up  his  little  suburban  Court  at  Rueil,  his  younger 
brother  was  mostly  to  be  found  regarding  the  bois- 
terous relaxations  of  Malmaison  with  Byronic  gloom. 

Louis  was  of  the  melancholy  stuff  that  unmarried 
uncles  are  made  of.  Indeed,  the  Emperor  and  his 
mother-in-law  subsequently  disagreed  as  to  whether 
it  was  the  study  of  Rousseau  or  his  digestion  that 
made  him  impossible.  Undisturbed  by  family  life 
such  a  man,  who  was  described  in  the  English  idiom 
of  1800  as  a  person  of  sensibility,  might  have  passed 
his  time  agreeably  enough  between  the  elegant  pat- 
ronage of  Canova  and  a  polite  correspondence  with 
Goethe.  But  with  a  wife  to  share  his  infelicity,  he  was 
bound  inevitably  to  become  the  unhappy  husband  of 
an  unhappy  woman.  Unfortunately  his  brother's 
wife  had  a  daughter. 

When  Josephine  de  Beauharnais  married  General 
Bonaparte,  that  lively  widow  from  Martinique 
brought  to  him  the  two  children  of  her  first  husband. 
The  younger  of  them  was  a  fair  schoolgirl  with  large 
blue  eyes,  named  Hortense-Eugenie.  In  the  closing 
years  of  the  Eighteenth  Century,  when  the  Revolution 
seemed  to  have  spent  its  force  in  the  feeble  move- 
ments of  the  Directoire,  she  was  trained  in  the  ac- 
complishments requisite  for  polite  society  at  Madame 
Campan's  celebrated  academy  for  young  ladies, 
where  that  indomitable  Minerva  kept  alive  under 
the  tricolour  and  Phrygian  cap  the  traditions  of 
French  gentility.  There  Hortense  received  instruc- 


40  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

tion  in  perspective,  deportment,  correct  sentiments 
and  the  use  of  the  globes;  and  she  displayed  that 
aptitude  for  playing  on  the  harp  and  painting  in 
water-colour  which  was  universally  recognised  to  be 
the  most  elegant  enhancement  of  a  pair  of  drooping 
shoulders  and  two  downcast  eyes. 

This  accomplished  young  lady  became  an  orna- 
ment of  the  Consular  circle  at  Malmaison  in  the  days 
when  her  mother  was  beginning  to  feel  the  weight 
of  a  republican  crown.  That  amiable  widow  had 
consented  to  become  the  wife  of  Napoleon  without 
anticipating  either  his  bewildering  promotions  or  the 
somewhat  volcanic  nature  of  his  affections,  and  to- 
wards the  year  1800  she  found  herself  balanced  a 
trifle  precariously  at  the  head  of  French  society.  The 
Bonapartes  had  always  resented  their  brother's  choice 
of  a  West  Indian  wife,  and  her  conduct  during  his 
absence  in  Egypt  provided  ample  material  for  the 
disapproval  of  his  family.  After  his  return  he  con- 
sidered the  possibility  of  a  divorce  upon  grounds 
which  were  at  once  more  human  and  less  royal  than 
those  upon  which  he  acted  ten  years  later.  But  he 
could  not  put  out  of  his  life  the  woman  whom  he 
later  called  without  irony  'the  best  woman  in  France,' 
in  whom  he  saw  'la  grazia  in  persona/  whose  name 
died  on  his  lips  in  the  dark  at  St.  Helena. 

Josephine  resumed  her  place  at  the  head  of  the 
Consular  household  with  an  increasing  fear  of  her 
husband  and  the  future.  But  in  such  a  situation 
any  step  was  welcome  which  would  bind  her  fortunes 
more  closely  to  those  of  the  Bonapartes.  Now  if 
her  daughter  were  to  marry  a  Bonaparte,  the  two 
families  must  rise  or  fall  together;  Hortense  might 
even  raise  up  children  who  could  become  the  heirs 


By  permission  of  Harper  &  Bros. 

The  Empress  Josephine  (1798) 
After  the  drawing  by  Isabey 


THE  PRINCE  41 

of  Napoleon  himself.  With  some  such  design  she 
marked  down  the  reflective  Louis  to  be  her  son-in- 
law.  The  prospect  was  uninviting  to  both  parties. 
Hortense  would  have  preferred  the  more  decorative 
Duroc,  and  Louis  would  have  preferred  another  lady 
in  spite  of  the  discouraging  circumstances  that  she 
had  suffered  in  the  past  from  the  small-pox  and 
continued  to  suffer  from  the  obstinate  longevity  of 
a  husband.  But  the  First  Consul  and  his  wife  were 
insistent.  It  was  an  age  of  submissive  daughters; 
and  Hortense,  who  might  with  a  little  firmness  have 
become  the  wife  of  the  youngest  Marshal  of  the 
Empire,  acquiesced  in  her  mother's  choice.  Louis 
was  more  restive.  But,  after  at  least  two  refusals 
and  a  determined  avoidance  of  the  young  lady's 
company  in  the  absence  of  witnesses,  he  succumbed 
to  the  fatal  atmosphere  of  a  ball-room  and  consented 
to  the  designs  of  his  implacable  relatives.  Napoleon 
retained  a  lively  recollection  of  the  conversation  for 
nearly  twenty  years  and  recorded  it  at  St.  Helena 
in  language  more  appropriate  to  the  sudden  storm  of 
a  fortified  position:  fune  attaque  aussi  vive  qvfin- 
attendue  lui  arracha  son  consent  ement'  The  result 
was  a  winter  wedding  in  the  Rue  de  la  Victoire,  and 
in  the  first  week  of  1802  Hortense  led  her  blushing 
bridegroom  to  the  altar. 

The  young  people  were  set  up  in  a  chateau  in  the 
He  de  France,  and  in  the  autumn  their  first  child 
was  born.  But  whilst  the  little  Napoleon-Louis- 
Charles  struggled  through  his  first  ailments,  his 
father  and  mother  were  drifting  from  indifference 
into  hostility  in  the  gardens  of  Saint-Leu.  The  Con- 
sular circle  had  become  the  Imperial  family  and,  in 
view  of  the  continued  childlessness  of  the  Empress, 


42  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Hortense's  child  was  a  small  boy  of  extreme  political 
importance.  But  his  parents  (it  may  have  been  due 
to  some  fault  in  Madame  Campan's  excellent  curri- 
culum) lived  in  a  dismal  atmosphere  of  domestic 
debate.  A  second  boy  was  born  in  1804.  But  Louis' 
health  deteriorated  as  his  curses  became  more  fre- 
quent, and  apart  from  her  two  little  boys  the  prospect 
for  Hortense  became  increasingly  dreary. 

At  this  point  the  Emperor,  who  was  a  trifle  inclined 
to  regard  his  relations  as  a  successful  player  of 
draughts  regards  his  pieces  when  they  have  reached 
the  far  end  of  the  board,  conceived  the  unfortunate 
design  of  converting  the  Dutch  Republic  into  a 
monarchy  and  promoting  Louis  to  be  its  king.  A 
conscientious  monarch  may  well  prove  a  depressing 
husband,  and  family  life  in  the  Dutch  palaces  varied 
between  tedium  and  disagreement.  When  Napoleon 
sent  a  French  nominee  to  The  Hague,  he  did  so  in  the 
reasonable  anticipation  that  French  interests  would 
not  be  disregarded  by  the  new  monarch.  But  Louis, 
whose  sentiments  were  now  dyed  a  deep  Orange, 
was  perpetually  insisting  on  the  ancient  liberties  of 
Holland  and  exasperated  his  brother  with  a  fervent 
patriotism  for  the  country  of  his  adoption.  His  wife 
was  treated  to  a  still  more  irritating  affectation  of 
Dutch  austerity.  Her  French  light-mindedness  be- 
came distasteful  to  the  successor  of  De  Witt  and 
William  the  Silent,  and  the  solemn  conduct  by  Louis 
of  his  royal  duties  and  diversions  called  down  a 
reproof  from  the  Emperor  in  1807  which  lights  up 
the  domestic  scene  in  which  Hortense  was  living: 

'Vous  gouvernez  trop  cette  nation  en  capucin.  La 
bonte  d'un  roi  doit  toujours  etre  majestueuse  et  ne  doit 
pas  etre  celle  d'un  moine.  .  .  . 


THE  PRINCE  43 

Vos  querelles  avec  la  Reine  percent  aussi  dans  le  public. 
Ayez  dans  votre  interieur  ce  caractere  paternel  et  effemine 
que  vous  montrez  dans  le  gouvernement,  et  ayez  dans  les 
affaires  ce  rigorisme  que  vous  montrez  dans  votre  menage. 
Vous  traitez  une  jeune  femme  comme  on  menerait  un 
regiment.  .  .  . 

Vous  avez  la  meilleure  femme  et  la  plus  vertueuse,  et 
vous  la  rendez  malheureuse.  Laissez-la  danser  tant  qu'elle 
veut,  c'est  de  son  age.  J'ai  une  femme  qui  a  quarante 
ans:  du  champ  de  bataille  je  lui  ecris  d 'oiler  au  bal; 
et  vous  voulez  qu'une  femme  de  vingt  ans,  qui  voit  passer 
sa  vie,  qui  en  a  toutes  les  illusions,  vive  dans  un  clottre, 
soit  comme  une  nourrice,  tou jours  a  laver  son  enfant?  .  .  . 
Malheureusement  vous  avez  une  femme  trap  vertueuse;  si 
vous  aviez  une  coquette,  elle  vous  menerait  par  le  bout  du 
nez.' 

Like  so  many  men,  Napoleon  would  have  made  a 
perfect  husband  to  another  man's  wife.  But  through 
the  interstices  between  his  excellent  advice  one  may 
catch  a  vivid  glimpse  of  that  dismal  Dutch  interior. 
The  Emperor,  whose  view  of  married  life  had  be- 
come so  debonair,  was  campaigning  at  the  far  side 
of  Europe.  He  had  fought  the  battle  of  Eylau  in 
the  winter,  and  he  was  now  tasting  the  discomfort 
of  operations  conducted  against  the  Russian  armies 
at  the  end  of  eight  hundred  miles  of  communications. 
But  his  letter  had  hardly  reached  Holland  from  East 
Prussia  when  the  long  shadow  of  bereavement  fell 
across  Hortense,  and  her  eldest  boy  died  in  her  arms 
at  The  Hague.  For  a  time  grief  made  her  husband 
seem  almost  tolerable.  The  surviving  child  was  sent 
to  his  grandmother,  and  the  King  and  Queen  of 
Holland  passed  the  summer  of  1807  in  a  dejected 
little  honeymoon  in  the  Pyrenees.  The  news  took 
more  characteristic  effect  upon  Napoleon.  After  a 
stream  of  kindly  letters  of  consolation  to  Hortense 


44  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

and  her  mother,  he  began  to  look  into  the  causes  of 
their  loss.  The  child,  it  appeared,  had  died  of  croup, 
and  on  a  June  morning  the  Emperor  dictated  a  note 
from  headquarters  to  his  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs : 

'Monsieur  Champagny,  depuis  vingt  ans  il  s'est  manifeste 
une  maladie  appelee  croup,  qui  enleve  beaucoup  d'enfants 
dans  le  nord  de  I'Europe,  Depuis  quelques  annees  elle 
se  propage  en  France.  Nous  desirous  que  vous  proposiez 
un  prix  de  12,000  francs,  qui  sera  donne  au  medecin  auteur 
du  meilleur  memoire  sur  cette  maladie  et  sur  la  maniere 
de  la  trailer.  NAPOLEON/ 

The  rest  of  the  day's  work  included  a  minute  to  the 
Minister  of  Marine  on  naval  supplies  and  the  defence 
of  Toulon,  a  note  to  Daru  on  an  increase  of  the 
tobacco  ration  of  the  forces  in  the  field,  and  a  decree 
awarding  public  lands  for  meritorious  service  in  the 
Polish  army.  Napoleon  also  found  time  for  a  line 
to  Jerome  Bonaparte  on  his  operations  in  Silesia 
(with  hints  on  the  management  of  a  discarded  General 
of  Division),  some  notes  on  the  conscripts  of  1808 
for  the  guidance  of  the  commander  of  his  general 
reserve,  and  a  strong  hint  to  Fouche  as  to  the  prompt 
removal  from  Paris  to  some  small  provincial  town 
of  two  ex-colonels  of  the  royal  army  and  a  sham 
baroness  who  had  been  spreading  disloyal  rumours. 
Administrative  life  was  sufficiently  variegated  at 
Imperial  headquarters  without  excursions  into  path- 
ology. But  the  Finckenstein  decree  on  croup,  which 
elicited  two  completely  erroneous  prize  essays  from 
practitioners  in  Bremen  and  Geneva,  was  a  neat  ex- 
ample of  Napoleonic  versatility  in  the  manner  of  the 
classical  Decret  de  Moscou  which  was  to  date  from 
the  Kremlin  in  1812  a  thorough  reorganisation  of  the 
Theatre  Francais.  Ten  days  after  that  busy  morning 


THE  PRINCE  45 

among  his  papers  the  Emperor  fought  the  battle  of 
Friedland  and  ended  the  Continental  war  which  had 
opened  at  Ulm  and  Austerlitz. 

But  the  death  of  the  Prince  Royal  of  Holland  at 
the  age  of  four  possessed  an  importance  beyond  the 
unsound  conclusions  of  the  medical  concours  of  1807. 
fCe  pauvre  Napoleon'  as  his  uncle  called  him,  had 
been  the  heir  to  the  French  Empire;  and  with  his 
death  the  Emperor  turned  once  more  to  that  project 
of  divorce  and  re-marriage  which  haunted  Josephine 
among  her  flowers  at  Malmaison.  The  surviving 
child  of  Hortense  could  not  take  both  the  Dutch  and 
the  French  succession,  and  something  must  be  done 
for  the  perpetuation  of  the  dynasty.  The  unpleasing 
subject  was  opened  to  the  Empress  early  in  1808, 
and  that  aging,  pretty  woman  with  her  forced  smile 
stared  miserably  down  the  prospect  of  deposition  and 
official  widowhood.  The  Emperor  postponed  a  de- 
cision, and  there  was  still  a  hope  that  Hortense  would 
provide  an  heir.  'It  is  your  Majesty's  business,' 
as  the  urbane  M.  de  Talleyrand  had  observed,  'to  give 
us  princes;  we  may  depend  on  you.' 

So  it  was  good  news,  when  the  boy  was  born  in 
April,  to  his  mother,  who  longed  for  the  company 
of  children  since  she  had  lost  that  of  her  husband, 
and  to  the  Emperor,  as  he  sat  in  Bayonne  watching 
the  Spanish  Bourbons  stumble  heavily  into  his  net. 
But  it  was  best  of  all  to  the  weary,  bright-eyed  woman 
who  waited  at  Bordeaux,  because  she  was  still  an 
Empress  and  the  child  in  Paris  might  serve  to  keep 
her  so  and  then  one  day  be  Emperor  of  the  French. 


Ill 


IMPERIAL,  infancy  under  the  First  Empire  was  apt 
to  be  uneventful,  but  impressive.  Even  the  com- 
paratively human  business  of  getting  born  was  con- 
ducted, for  a  little  Prince  of  Holland,  with  a  wealth 
of  ritual.  Late  in  the  afternoon  of  April  20,  1808, 
three  Princes  of  the  Empire,  one  Cardinal,  the  Dutch 
ambassador,  a  French  minister,  a  Grand-Duchess 
who  was  sister  to  the  Emperor  and  Murat's  wife, 
and  the  alarming  old  lady  whom  Napoleon  called 
Madame  Mere  came  to  the  door  in  the  Rue  Cerutti, 
and  an  official  acte  de  naissance  was  executed  for 
publication  in  the  next  day's  Moniteur.  Respectful 
crowds  cheered  their  King  under  a  palace  window 
at  Amsterdam,  and  Hortense  was  overwhelmed  by 
visits  of  ceremony  in  Paris.  She  had  inherited  her 
mother's  tropical  taste  for  flowers;  but  although  she 
was  never  without  the  scent  of  Parma  violets,  which 
she  introduced  into  France,  the  scent  of  M.  de  Talley- 
rand's powder  came  near  to  overcoming  her. 

There  was  some  official  correspondence  from 
Bayonne  on  the  subject  of  the  boy's  name.  The 
Emperor,  like  all  the  world,  had  forgotten  the  child's 
father;  but  with  an  effort  of  piety  he  recalled  the 
shadowy  figure  of  his  own  and  wished  the  new  prince 
to  be  called  Charles-Napoleon.  This  desire  was  ex- 
pressed in  a  short  note  to  The  Hague,  dictated  on  the 
morning  after  the  Dos  Mayo,  when  the  Spaniards 

46 


THE  PRINCE  47 

rose  in  resentment  of  the  detention  of  their  royal 
family  in  Bayonne  and  the  streets  of  Madrid  were 
cleared  by  French  cavalry.  The  volleys  of  Murat's 
firing-parties  were  still  echoing  in  the  ears  of  the 
Madrilenos  and  the  news  of  the  emeute  was  boiling 
slowly  up  through  Old  Castile,  when  the  Emperor, 
after  sending  some  orders  into  Spain  and  answering 
letters  from  Fouche  and  the  Viceroy  of  Italy,  con- 
sidered the  problem  of  his  small  nephew's  name.  But 
the  first  proposal  was  modified  by  a  sudden  recollec- 
tion of  the  existence  of  King  Louis ;  and  a  few  weeks 
later  the  world  was  informed  through  the  Moniteur 
that  the  boy  was  to  be  called  Charles-Louis-Napoleon. 
He  bore,  a  trifle  ominously,  the  names  of  two  failures 
and  an  emperor. 

The  little  prince  started  life  with  both  parents  and 
a  small  brother  of  three.  He  had  a  king  for  his  father 
and  an  Empress  for  his  grandmother.  But  before  his 
third  birthday  Josephine  was  dethroned  in  Paris 
and  Louis  had  ceased  to  reign  in  Holland.  The  night- 
mare of  divorce  had  seemed  to  fade  in  the  early  months 
of  1808.  The  Emperor  had  yielded  to  her  unanswer- 
able argument  of  tears  in  March.  When  he  moved 
to  Bayonne  to  direct  the  Spanish  operation  from  the 
frontier,  the  Empress  followed  him  as  far  as  Bor- 
deaux, where  the  news  of  the  child's  birth  reached 
her.  A  few  days  later  she  was  presiding  over  the 
combined  Courts  of  France  and  Spain  in  villeggiatura 
which  must  have  been  a  trifle  congested,  since 
Napoleon  and  his  Empress,  Charles  and  his  Queen, 
Ferdinand  and  Godoy  were  comprehended  with  an 
appropriate  suite  within  the  straining  limits  of  a 
provincial  chateau.  The  Emperor  was  in  the  wildest 
spirits,  and  Josephine  retained  his  favour,  which  was 


48  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

indicated,  as  was  usual  with  him,  by  the  most  distress- 
ing practical  jokes.  The  couple  travelled  together 
as  far  as  Paris,  and  Napoleon  posted  alone  across 
Europe  to  the  Congress  of  Erfurt.  There,  in  a  rarefied 
atmosphere  of  diplomacy  and  without  the  distraction 
of  a  pretty  woman's  tears,  he  could  regard  the  divorce 
of  Josephine  in  the  cold  light  of  foreign  policy,  and 
Talleyrand  was  instructed  to  open  negotiations  with 
Russia  for  a  Grand-Duchess.  In  the  autumn  he  was 
back  in  Paris  on  the  road  to  Spain,  and  as  the  berline 
left  the  Tuileries  for  the  south,  they  kept  the  Empress 
from  taking  the  road  with  her  husband. 

From  Spain,  where  the  Grand  Armee  swept 
Palafox  into  Saragossa  and  brought  King  Joseph 
back  across  the  Guadarrama  into  Madrid,  the  Em- 
peror furnished  Josephine  with  a  curt  but  conjugal 
series  of  notes  on  his  health,  whilst  the  embers  of  the 
Spanish  insurrection  were  vigorously  scattered  and 
the  English  were  driven  into  the  sea  at  Corunna. 
Early  in  1809  Napoleon  crossed  France  once  more  on 
his  way  to  break  Austria  at  Wagram.  He  took  the 
Empress  with  him  as  far  as  Strasburg,  and  during 
the  ensuing  campaign  he  entrusted  her  with  various 
official  duties.  The  tone  of  his  letters  gave  no  hint 
of  the  impending  divorce.  Hortense  and  the  baby, 
who  was  now  a  year  old,  had  gone  with  her  other 
boy  to  the  waters  at  Baden-Baden.  The  Emperor 
was  busy  fighting  the  Archduke  Charles  outside 
Vienna;  but  a  week  after  the  battle  of  Aspern- 
Essling,  in  that  busy  military  interlude  in  which  the 
French  army  prepared  to  re-emerge  from  the  island 
of  Lobau  and  move  upon  Wagram,  he  found  two 
minutes  for  the  composition  of  an  indignant  family 
letter.  Hortense  was  sharply  reminded  that  valu- 


THE  PRINCE  49 

able  French  princes  must  not  be  hazarded  on  German 
territory.  Peremptory  orders  came  to  her  from 
Schonbrunn  to  interrupt  her  thermal  exercises,  and 
she  was  given  precisely  one  hour  in  which  to  send 
the  boys  back  over  the  Rhine  to  Strasburg.  The 
Empress  was  delighted  at  this  evidence  of  the  value 
which  Napoleon  still  placed  on  Hortense's  children, 
and  her  confidence  may  well  have  been  increased 
by  the  geniality  of  his  tone  in  the  correspondence 
which  came  from  Vienna  after  the  victory  of  1809. 
It  had  been  for  many  years  his  pleasing  habit  to 
threaten  her  with  the  prospect,  so  alarming  to  wives 
in  war-time,  of  a  sudden  midnight  return  of  the 
wronged  husband  from  the  distant  wars.  The  pic- 
ture seemed  to  attract  his  somewhat  primitive  sense 
of  humour,  and  it  had  become  a  standing  family  joke 
in  his  letters  to  Josephine,  which  abound  in  wild 
imaginary  scenes  of  nocturnal  farce.  So  late  as  the 
month  of  September  in  the  year  of  the  divorce  the 
Emperor  found  the  heart  to  send  to  his  wife  a  comic 
admonition  from  Schonbrunn: 

'Ne  te  fie  pas,  et  je  te  conseille  de  te  bien  garder  la  nuit; 
car  une  des  prochaines  tu  entendras  grand  bruit.' 

But  after  his  return  to  France  the  end  came  quickly. 
The  first  hint  was  given  by  a  closed  door  in  the  palace. 
The  poor  lady  endeavoured  to  retrieve  the  first  even- 
ing by  a  new  dress  and  a  wreath  of  blue  flowers ;  but 
her  husband  gloomily  observed  that  they  had  taken 
an  hour  and  a  half  to  put  on.  The  autumn  of  1809 
slowly  deepened  for  Josephine  in  rain  and  wretched- 
ness. Napoleon  pleaded  for  a  divorce,  and  the  Em- 
press went  about  the  Tuileries  holding  her  head  low 
so  that  they  should  not  see  how  red  her  eyes  were. 


50  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Her  grief  was  bitter  and  genuine;  but  she  was  not 
unaware  of  its  value  as  an  argument,  and  once  at 
least  with  a  full  appreciation  of  the  dialectical  advan- 
tages of  unconsciousness  she  interrupted  a  swoon  to 
warn  a  solicitous  courtier  that  she  was  incommoded 
by  his  sword-belt.  The  swoon  was  satisfactorily 
resumed,  but  the  Emperor  remained  unmoved.  The 
Court  calendar  with  a  ghastly  ineptitude  brought  on 
the  fifth  anniversary  of  the  Imperial  coronation,  and 
the  unhappy  Empress  went  weakly  through  an  even- 
ing of  official  felicitation  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  After 
that  she  broke  down,  and  a  few  days  later  the 
Bonapartes  sat  solemnly  round  a  table  in  the  Tuileries 
to  hear  Josephine,  in  white  and  without  jewellery, 
renounce  her  husband.  That  evening  she  stumbled 
to  his  room,  and  on  the  next  day  she  drove  out  of 
Paris  through  the  rain  to  Malmaison. 

The  little  Prince  had  lost  an  Empress  for  his  grand- 
mother before  his  second  birthday.  But  as  the  year 
1810  opened,  his  father  was  still  a  king.  That  dismal, 
if  conscientious,  monarch  had  consistently  failed  to 
give  satisfaction  in  the  Napoleonic  hierarchy.  His 
morbid  sensitiveness  to  the  interests  of  his  subjects 
became  increasingly  distasteful  to  the  Emperor,  and 
the  Continental  blockade  of  England  provided  fre- 
quent topics  for  dissension  between  Paris  and  Am- 
sterdam. In  this  controversy  Louis  proved  himself 
no  better  than  a  Dutchman,  and  Napoleon  was 
indisposed  to  bargain  with  the  Dutch  as  to  the  precise 
measure  of  their  co-operation  in  the  economic  war. 
Shortly  after  the  divorce  he  put  in  a  French  army  of 
occupation  and  took  control  of  the  Dutch  coast  and 
custom-houses.  It  was  the  end  of  Holland,  which 
was  not  even  accorded  the  comparative  dignity  of 


THE  PRINCE  51 

partition.  The  King,  whose  monarchy  had  ceased  to 
be  even  nominal,  abdicated  in  favour  of  his  younger 
son,  and  abandoning  his  family  at  the  same  time  as 
his  throne,  retired  alone  to  the  Austrian  Alps.  But 
the  little  Prince  never  reigned  in  Holland,  which  was 
promptly  annexed  to  the  French  Empire.  He  was 
reserved  for  a  more  devious  ascent  to  a  greater 
throne. 

Late  in  the  year,  when  Napoleon  had  inflicted  upon 
the  Hapsburgs  the  supreme  humiliation  of  matrimony 
and  the  Empress  Marie  Louise  simpered  at  the  head 
of  French  society,  the  child  was  baptized  at  Fontaine- 
bleau  in  an  impressive  galaxy  of  Dukes  and  Counts 
of  the  Empire.  The  new  Empress  stood  godmother. 
But  in  spite  of  this  encouraging  beam  from  the  rising 
sun,  Hortense,  as  the  daughter  of  an  ex-Empress  and 
the  deserted  wife  of  an  ex-King,  occupied  under  the 
later  Empire  a  position  which  was  somewhat  effaced. 
Having  consoled  herself  for  the  absence  of  King 
Louis  with  the  presence  of  the  Comte  de  Flahaut,  she 
bore  him  a  child  who,  as  the  Due  de  Morny,  was  to 
take  part  in  the  family  adventure  of  the  Second 
Empire.  But  the  greater  part  of  her  time  was  passed 
with  her  two  little  boys  in  consoling  the  official  widow- 
hood of  Josephine  at  Malmaison.  There  were 
occasional  interludes  of  a  more  alarming  character 
when  they  breakfasted  at  the  Tuileries  with  the  Em- 
peror; he  invariably  bore  down  on  his  small  nephews 
and  lifted  them  by  the  head  on  to  a  table,  a  practice 
discouraged  under  medical  advice  by  their  mother. 
But  their  recollections  were  mainly  of  Malmaison, 
where  a  smiling  lady  with  sad  eyes  let  them  run  riot 
among  the  flowers  and  gave  them  the  most  exciting 
presents,  whilst  their  mother  was  taking  the  waters 


52 

amongst  all  the  fine  gentlemen  at  Aix.  The  little 
Louis,  dressed  in  the  costume  which  delights  the 
admirers  of  Miss  Kate  Greenaway,  was  sufficiently 
delicate  to  become  the  favourite;  and  his  health  was 
carefully  preserved  by  the  precaution  of  a  governess 
who,  when  he  watered  the  flowers,  filled  the  watering- 
can  with  warm  water.  In  the  years  of  the  Empire's 
decline  a  small  boy,  who  was  to  see  little  more  of 
France  until  he  returned  to  rule  it,  was  walking  in 
the  woods  round  Malmaison  or  drilling  the  big 
Grenadiers  of  the  Guard  who  stood  sentry  at  his 
grandmother's  door,  and  rewarding  them  shyly  with 
a  furtive  biscuit. 

Before  the  child  was  six,  the  Emperor  had  fought 
a  rearguard  action  across  Europe  which  brought  him 
from  Moscow  to  Leipzig  and  from  the  Rhine  to 
Champaubert.  The  Empire  went  down  in  the  spring 
campaign  of  1814,  and  for  the  two  children  there  was 
a  confused  recollection  of  an  excited  mother  and  a 
night  drive  out  of  Paris  to  the  sound  of  the  guns. 
When  the  news  came  to  Josephine  that  the  Emperor 
had  ceased  to  reign  in  France,  the  tired  woman  that 
he  had  put  away  sat  weeping  in  the  night  and  crept 
back  to  Malmaison  to  die. 


IV 

SMALL  boys  of  six  are  rarely  intrigued  by  the  chang- 
ing fortunes  of  their  uncles.  Indeed,  the  little  Louis 
probably  welcomed  the  disasters  of  1814,  which  were 
for  him  the  excuse  for  exciting  journeys  and  delight- 
ful visits  to  strange  houses.  The  interval  between 
the  collapse  of  the  Empire  and  the  return  of  the 
Emperor  in  the  following  spring  was  a  crowded 
interlude  of  foreign  visitors.  There  was  a  tall  fair 
gentleman  with  curly  hair  and  such  high  collars  to 
his  uniforms,  who  particularly  engaged  the  Prince's 
affections.  He  was  believed  to  be  a  mysterious  digni- 
tary known  as  the  Czar  of  Russia,  and  became  one 
day,  by  a  sudden  and  furtive  gift  from  an  embarrassed 
little  boy,  the  possessor  of  Louis'  only  ring.  Then 
there  was  an  unhappy-looking  German  gentleman, 
who  was  the  King  of  Prussia  and  brought  with  him 
to  Malmaison  two  small  boys,  to  one  of  whom  fifty 
years  later  Louis  was  to  send  his  sword  on  the  hill 
of  La  Marfee  above  Sedan.  Other  gentlemen  came 
to  conspire  in  the  drawing-room  about  his  uncle, 
and  a  rather  alarming  lady,  whose  excess  of  petti- 
coats was  noticed  about  the  same  time  by  another 
youthful  observer,  asked  one  a  great  many  questions 
and  answered  to  the  name  of  de  Stael. 

Then  came  a  fascinating  evening  in  March,  1815, 
when  the  boys  were  back  in  Paris  with  their  mother 
at  the  house  in  the  Rue  Cerutti.  An  Englishman  had 

53 


54  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

told  Hortense  the  news  that  Napoleon  had  broken 
out  of  Elba  and  landed  in  the  south,  and  his  raid 
spelt  danger  to  such  members  of  his  family  as  were 
in  the  capital  of  King  Louis  XVIII.  That  night  there 
was  a  party  downstairs.  In  the  children's  room  there 
was  a  little  hasty  packing,  and  a  governess  delighted 
them  by  taking  them  across  a  dark  garden  into  the 
streets.  It  was  inadvisable  to  be  a  Bonaparte  in 
Paris  whilst  the  eagles  were  advancing  from  Grenoble 
to  Lyons,  and  for  twelve  days  Hortense  shared  with 
her  boys  a  lumber-room  in  the  house  of  an  old  nurse. 
But  the  Emperor  swept  into  Paris;  and  when  he 
came  back  to  Elba  to  find  his  first  Empress  dead  in 
the  church  at  Rueil  and  his  second  enjoying  beyond 
the  French  frontier  the  society  of  a  one-eyed  Austrian 
count,  Hortense  stood  at  his  side  and  her  boys  be- 
came a  small  part  of  the  Napoleonic  legend. 

The  sudden  course  of  the  Hundred  Days  seemed 
to  sweep  the  little  Louis  into  the  direct  line  of  the 
Imperial  succession.  Hortense,  who  was  in  mourn- 
ing for  her  mother,  had  gone  to  the  Tuileries  in  black 
on  that  March  afternoon  when  the  personnel  of  the 
Empire  resumed  possession  of  the  palace.  Whilst 
the  Emperor  was  driving  up  the  white  road  from 
Fontainebleau,  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  his  Court 
passed  a  happy  evening  of  hysterical  recognitions, 
diversified  by  the  pleasing  discovery  that  one  could 
pull  the  fleurs  de  lys  off  the  carpet  in  the  throne-room 
and  reveal  the  Imperial  bees.  Towards  nine  o'clock 
there  was  a  roar  from  the  courtyard,  as  a  closed 
carriage  clattered  in  with  a  cavalry  escort  and 
Napoleon,  his  eyes  closed  and  a  fixed  smile  on  his 
lips,  was  carried  into  his  palace  on  the  shoulders 
of  men. 


THE  PRINCE  55 

That  night  he  saw  Hortense;  he  said  a  word  to 
her  about  her  brother  Eugene  and  seemed  vexed  at 
her  residence  in  Paris  under  the  Bourbons.  But  the 
absence  of  the  Empress  brought  her  into  prominence, 
and  during  the  hurried  reign  which  preceded  the 
campaign  of  Waterloo  Napoleon  drove  out  more 
than  once  to  be  her  guest  at  Malmaison.  Sometimes 
she  took  the  boys  to  him  at  the  Tuileries  or  the  £lysee, 
and  once  he  presented  them  to  the  troops  outside  the 
palace  windows  in  the  Place  du  Carrousel.  His  own 
son  was  a  hostage  in  Allied  hands ;  and  if  the  Emperor 
ever  found  leisure  in  the  desperate  improvisation  of 
the  Hundred  Days  to  think  of  the  succession,  he  must 
have  looked  curiously  at  his  small  nephews.  But 
their  greatest  excitement  was  the  day  of  the  Champ 
de  Mai,  when  they  were  taken  in  a  box  with  their 
mother  and  the  ex-Queen  of  Spain  to  see  their  uncle 
take  oath  to  the  new  Constitution  and  give  eagles  to 
his  new  armies.  There  was  a  salute  of  six  hundred 
guns,  as  the  Lancers  of  the  Guard  jingled  across  the 
Pont  d'lena  and  the  Emperor,  with  four  Marshals 
riding  beside  his  coach,  drove  on  to  the  ground  and 
took  his  place  for  the  ceremony.  The  small  boys, 
whose  places  were  immediately  above  the  throne,  en- 
joyed from  behind  the  unusual  and  fascinating 
spectacle  of  their  uncles  Lucien,  Joseph,  and  Jerome 
in  white  velvet,  wearing  short  capes  a  I'espagnole 
embroidered  with  golden  bees,  and  carrying  remark- 
able feathered  hats  which  hesitated  in  style  between 
the  Renaissance  and  the  toreador.  It  was  a  warm 
afternoon  of  June  sunshine;  and  the  programme, 
which  was  generously  punctuated  with  salutes  of  one 
hundred  guns  and  included  an  open  air  service,  eight 
other  events,  and  a  Te  Deum,  was  admirably  calcu- 


56  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

lated  to  minister  to  the  enjoyment  of  two  schoolboys 
with  good  seats. 

Ten  days  later,  as  the  last  army  of  the  Empire  was 
moving  slowly  up  to  the  Sambre  and  anxious  caterers 
in  Brussels  were  preparing  for  the  Duchess  of  Rich- 
mond's ball,  the  children  were  sent  for  to  say  good- 
bye to  their  uncle  before  he  took  the  road  for  the 
northern  frontier.  Popular  history,  always  so  re- 
sponsive to  the  exigencies  of  drama,  has  set  a  pleasing 
scene  in  Napoleon's  room.  To  the  Emperor  and 
Soult,  deep  in  the  maps  and  papers  of  the  approach- 
ing campaign,  enter  a  weeping  nephew  of  seven;  he 
clings  to  his  uncle  and  begs  him  not  to  go,  not  to  go 
because  the  wicked  Allies  want  to  kill  him.  The 
hero  falls  silent,  kisses  the  child,  and,  as  they  lead 
him  away,  turns  quietly  to  Soult:  'There,  Marshal, 
kiss  the  boy:  he  will  have  a  good  heart  and  a  high 
mind — he  may  be  the  hope  of  my  race.'  The  Emperor 
is  left  thinking,  and  the  curtain  descends  slowly  upon 
the  applause  of  a  Bonapartist  posterity.  But  the 
true  facts  are  a  trifle  less  Sophoclean.  There  was  a 
family  party  at  the  ^lysee  on  the  evening  before 
Napoleon  drove  out  of  Paris  to  the  army.  All  the 
small  nephews  were  allowed  to  come  in  to  dessert, 
and  the  Emperor,  unaware  for  once  of  the  dramatic 
possibilities  of  an  occasion,  abstained  from  histrionics 
and  was  in  thoroughly  good  spirits.  His  brief  ex- 
hausting masquerade  as  a  citizen  king  was  at  an  end, 
and  he  was  once  more  in  command  of  the  armies  of 
France. 

When  the  news  came  to  Hortense  that  Napoleon 
had  lost  'that  last  weird  battle'  in  the  north,  she  sent 
her  boys  to  cover  at  a  dressmaker's  in  the  Boulevard 
Montmartre  and  stood  up  bravely  to  receive  the 


THE  PRINCE  57 

Emperor  in  defeat.  Three  days  after  Waterloo  he 
drove  into  Paris  at  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and 
for  three  days  more  he  struggled  with  the  unfamiliar 
forces  of  parliamentarism  and  Fouche.  Then  one 
evening  at  dinner  he  turned  abruptly  to  Josephine's 
daughter :  fJe  veux  me  retirer  a  la  Malmaison.  C'est 
a  vous.  Voulez-vous  m'y  donner  Vhospitalite?'  That 
night  she  posted  out  of  Paris  to  Rueil,  and  on  a  sum- 
mer afternoon  the  Emperor  drove  for  shelter  to  his 
dead  wife's  house.  For  three  days  Hortense  made 
for  him  a  home  among  the  June  flowers.  Her  boys 
were  fetched  from  their  hiding-place  to  see  him  once 
more.  His  mind  was  busy  with  plans  for  America, 
for  a  scientific  career,  for  a  second  campaign  of 
France.  But  for  long  intervals  at  Malmaison  he 
seemed  to  see  nothing  but  the  lost,  slim  figure  of 
Josephine  bending  above  her  roses.  There  was  a 
great  coming  and  going  of  military  messengers  bear- 
ing the  wishes  of  the  Provisional  Government,  the 
news  of  the  Prussian  advance,  and  the  last  offer  to 
France  of  the  sword  of  her  greatest  soldier  'not  as 
Emperor,  but  as  a  General  whose  name  and  reputa- 
tion may  still  affect  the  nation's  fortunes.'  At  last  in 
the  lengthening  shadows  of  a  June  afternoon,  dressed 
strangely  as  a  civilian,  he  passed  through  a  little  gate 
and  drove  away.  They  did  not  speak  until  the 
carriage  reached  Rambouillet. 


THE  First  Empire  was  at  an  end.  But  Prince  Louis 
had  more  than  thirty  years  to  wait  for  the  Second 
Empire  to  begin.  The  Bonapartes  after  Waterloo 
were  hardly  likely  to  begin  it.  Elaborate  measures 
of  international  police  excluded  them  from  France, 
separated  them  from  any  common  centre,  and  dic- 
tated the  smallest  details  of  their  provincial  exist- 
ences. The  King  of  Rome  was  learning  to  wear  a 
white  uniform  in  Vienna  with  anaemic  distinction. 
Madame  Mere  resided  at  Rome  in  a  mild  aureole  of 
Papal  courtesy.  Joseph  was  on  the  banks  of  the 
Delaware.  Louis  and  Lucien  lived  lives  of  Tuscan 
ease  at  Florence  and  Frascati;  whilst  Jerome  and 
the  sisters  were  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Trieste.  All 
of  them  were  pitiably  quiescent  and  eager  for  the 
comfort  of  oblivion.  There  was  little  truth  in  the 
complaint  of  an  impatient  nephew:  'All  the  Bona- 
partes are  dead.' 

In  this  dismal  Diaspora  Hortense  and  her  two  boys 
travelled  a  long  and  embittering  road.  Peremptorily 
ordered  out  of  Paris  by  a  Prussian  general,  they 
followed  the  traditional  route  of  royal  exiles  and 
headed  for  Switzerland.  But  by  her  brave  refusal 
to  desert  the  Emperor  in  his  downfall  she  had  acquired 
an  inconvenient  reputation  as  a  Bonapartist  firebrand, 
and  Geneva  was  rendered  unpleasant  by  the  excessive 
degree  to  which  the  local  Swiss  had  developed  the 

58 


THE  PRINCE  59 

national  instinct  for  rallying  to  the  winning  side. 
There  was  even  held  at  her  hotel  a  banquet  of  Swiss 
officers  to  celebrate  the  defeat  of  Napoleon  by  almost 
every  other  army  in  Europe;  and  Hortense,  under 
Allied  supervision,  left  with  relief  for  Aix-les-Bains. 

At  this  stage  she  lost  her  eldest  boy  by  the  mysteri- 
ous operation  of  French  justice.  Her  husband  had 
commenced  proceedings  in  the  royal  courts  to  recover 
the  custody  of  his  two  children.  The  litigation  can 
only  have  been  inspired  by  spite,  since  it  is  difficult 
to  believe  that  the  dismal  Louis,  who  was  one  of 
Nature's  solitaries,  was  genuinely  anxious  for  the 
uninterrupted  society  of  two  small  boys.  An  em- 
barrassed tribunal,  following  the  principles  of 
jurisprudence  laid  down  under  somewhat  similar 
circumstances  by  King  Solomon,  bisected  the  disputed 
family  and  awarded  the  eldest  son  to  his  aggrieved 
father.  But  before  the  judgment  could  be  executed, 
Napoleon  had  returned  from  Elba  and  Hortense 
enjoyed  a  brief  respite.  The  decree  of  the  King's 
courts  revived  in  the  autumn  of  1815,  and  the  elder 
boy  was  removed  to  his  father  in  Italy,  leaving  his 
mother  to  take  the  road  with  the  little  Louis. 

Hortense  in  exile  developed  to  an  alarming  degree 
that  tendency  towards  mild  virtuosity  which  had 
made  her  the  youthful  prodigy  of  Malmaison.  When 
ill-health  followed  her  judicial  bereavement  of  a  son, 
they  found  her  sketching  feebly  on  the  hills  above 
Aix.  Her  accomplishments,  which  included  poetry, 
drawing,  painting,  singing,  and  musical  composition, 
were  something  more  than  queenly;  sometimes  she 
carried  them  to  a  pitch  beyond  the  ladylike  which 
positively  verged  upon  the  professional.  The  air  of 
Partant  pour  la  Syrie,  which  became  the  official 


60  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

anthem  of  the  Second  Empire,  was  her  work;  and 
her  Creole  origin  was  never  more  clearly  indicated 
than  by  a  Marche  Imperiale  for  six  pianos  and  a 
military  band.  This  indomitable  amateur  became, 
naturally  enough,  the  tutor  of  her  remaining  boy,  and 
her  instruction  was  eked  out  with  a  succession  of 
French  gentlemen  of  mild  erudition. 

The  exiles  had  money;  but  it  became  the  business 
of  the  Holy  Alliance  to  see  that  they  had  little  peace. 
An  Allied  Conference  met  in  Paris  and  considered 
the  grave  menace  presented  to  the  peace  of  Europe 
by  the  continued  residence  on  the  shores  of  the  Lac 
du  Bourget  of  Hortense  and  a  child  who  was  now 
almost  eight  years  old.  It  was  decided,  as  the  winter 
was  coming  on,  to  transfer  them  under  circumstances 
of  the  greatest  possible  discomfort  to  Constance  in 
Baden.  This  Bonapartist  invasion,  which  was 
accommodated  with  some  difficulty  at  an  exceedingly 
bad  hotel,  struck  the  government  of  the  Grand-Duchy 
with  consternation;  and  the  poor  lady  was  promptly 
requested  to  leave.  With  a  gesture  of  heroism  that  was 
almost  Napoleonic  Hortense  defied  Europe  and  took 
a  house;  and  Constance  became  for  two  years  the 
place  of  her  exile.  It  was  a  dreary  period,  in  which 
the  little  Prince  was  instructed  in  the  rudiments  and 
developed  a  startling  and  hazardous  form  of  charity 
for  which  authority  exists  in  the  life  of  St.  Martin; 
it  appears  to  have  been  his  practice  to  respond  to 
mendicant  appeals  with  the  immediate  gift  of  his 
clothing  in  a  manner  which  both  embarrassed  himself 
and  alarmed  his  mother.  But  after  little  more  than 
a  year  of  residence  in  Baden,  the  wheels  of  Allied 
policy  began  to  revolve  once  more,  and  the  lady  arid 
her  little  boy  were  moved  on  into  Bavaria. 


THE  PRINCE  61 

By  the  accident  of  royal  courtesy  at  Munich  Louis 
became  a  German  schoolboy,  and  the  first  stage  of 
his  training  for  the  throne  of  France  was  conducted 
at  the  St.  Anna  Gymnasium  of  Augsburg.  He  took 
a  French  tutor  with  him,  and  during  the  first  four 
years  of  his  residence  his  mother  had  a  house  in  the 
town.  But  in  the  main  his  education  was  in  the  hands 
of  German  teachers  who  observed  in  him  those  signs 
of  ability  which  academic  persons  have  never  failed  to 
detect  in  royal  pupils.  It  resulted  from  his  instruc- 
tion at  Augsburg  that  he  acquired  a  German  accent 
and  a  vague  flavour  of  Teutonic  romance ;  the  atmos- 
phere of  German  education  in  the  year  1820  was 
unfriendly  to  undue  precision  of  thought,  and  the  haze 
which  it  engendered  can  hardly  have  been  dispelled 
for  Louis  by  the  desultory  predilections  of  Hortense. 
His  holidays  were  spent  in  travel,  which  took  him  to 
every  resort  in  Switzerland  in  pursuit  of  his  mother's 
health,  to  the  South  German  palaces  where  he  had 
friends  and  cousins,  or  on  more  alarming  visits  of 
duty  to  his  father  in  Italy.  In  the  years  between 
1820  and  1830,  when  the  whole  western  sky  of  Europe 
was  alight  with  the  afterglow  of  Byron  and  the  young 
lions  of  French  Romanticism  were  beginning  to  roar 
in  Paris,  the  young  Louis  Bonaparte  was  a  mild-eyed 
German  schoolboy,  learning  to  seek  philosophy  in  a 
sunset  and  romance  in  a  ruined  castle. 

By  this  time  Hortense  had  succeeded  in  securing  a 
permanent  home.  The  Canton  of  Thurgau  redeemed 
the  Swiss  reputation  for  political  hospitality  by  a 
definite  invitation  to  the  ex-Queen  and  her  son,  and 
with  some  hesitation  she  bought  a  chateau  at  Arenen- 
berg  on  the  Swiss  shore  of  the  Lake  of  Constance. 
The  Allied  governments  weighed  this  dangerous  step 


62  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

with  their  accustomed  gravity,  and  Stratford  Can- 
ning, who  was  serving  his  diplomatic  apprenticeship 
at  Berne,  corresponded  solemnly  with  Lord  Castle- 
reagh  as  to  the  possibility  of  effectively  overlooking 
a  lady  who  lived  on  the  banks  of  a  lake.  But  she 
proceeded  with  the  preparation  of  her  home.  The 
reception  rooms  were  all  decorated  in  the  tented  style 
which  had  been  so  modish  under  the  Consulate,  and 
the  house  was  filled  with  the  swans'  necks  and  the 
gleaming  gryphons  of  her  Empire  furniture.  While 
his  mother  sketched  the  lake  with  all  the  persistence 
of  a  determined  amateur,  Louis  passed  out  of  boy- 
hood in  an  atmosphere  of  rural  gentility,  driving  his 
cabriolet  up  and  down  the  road  to  Constance,  riding, 
shooting,  swimming,  doing  acts  of  feudal  beneficence, 
and  performing  generally  all  those  duties  which  are 
believed  to  qualify  an  English  landowner  for  a  seat 
on  the  local  Bench.  He  emerged  from  his  training 
as  a  sportsman  of  tolerable  proficiency  who  scandal- 
ised an  English  peer  in  1829  by  riding  at  full  gallop 
through  the  streets  of  Rome. 

But  swimming  the  lake  and  winning  prizes  at  the 
local  Schutzenfest  were  not  his  only  interests.  A 
Bonaparte,  even  if  he  were  a  younger  son,  must  learn 
the  family  trade  of  war.  The  French  army  was  closed 
to  him.  But  in  1829,  when  Diebitsch  was  moving  on 
Silistria,  the  Byronic  appeal  of  a  campaign  against 
the  Turk  proved  irresistible,  and  he  begged  his  father 
for  leave  to  serve  with  the  Russians.  Had  it  been 
granted,  the  prospects  of  the  Second  Empire  might 
well  have  ended  abruptly  in  a  scuffle  in  the  Dobrudja. 
But  Louis  at  fifty  was  unsympathetic  to  a  young 
man's  romantic  predilection  for  crusading  under  a 
foreign  flag.  His  permission  was  withheld  in  a  letter 


THE  PRINCE  63 

which  denounced  as  barbarism  all  war  except  a  war 
of  national  defence,  and  the  Prince  was  left  to  satisfy 
his  military  inclinations  nearer  home.  With  a  drop 
in  the  scale  of  romance  he  joined  the  Swiss  artillery. 
There  was  a  volunteer  unit  which  went  into  camp  at 
Thun,  and  route-marching  had  no  terrors  for  a  young 
man  who  had  walked  over  the  Spliigen  with  his  tutor. 
Under  commanding  officers  who  had  learnt  their 
experience  in  the  wars  of  the  Empire  he  acquired  that 
familiarity  with  the  details  of  military  equipment 
which  is  indispensable  to  monarchs,  and  when  the  July 
Revolution  swept  Paris  in  1830,  he  was  learning  the 
elements  of  gunnery  on  the  Polygon  at  Thun.  The 
news  brought  him  to  the  frontier,  and  from  Geneva 
he  strained  his  eyes  into  France. 

In  the  autumn  he  went  into  Italy  with  his  mother 
on  a  visit  to  her  elder  son  at  Florence.  His  brother, 
from  whom  he  had  been  separated  by  the  French 
courts,  was  now  happily  married  to  a  cousin,  and 
in  default  of  politics  he  had  devoted  himself  to  in- 
dustrial enterprises.  After  a  few  days  Prince  Louis 
went  on  with  Hortense  to  Rome  and  proceeded  to 
render  himself  impossible  in  the  eyes  of  the  Papal 
police  by  attending  a  suspicious  meeting  of  the  male 
members  of  his  family  and  emphasising  the  revolu- 
tionary nature  of  his  sympathies  by  a  shameless 
exhibition  of  the  tricolour.  He  was  conducted  to  the 
frontier  under  escort  and  rejoined  his  brother  at 
Florence.  Early  in  the  new  year  Hortense  warned 
the  young  man  against  futile  adventures.  But  her 
advice  came  too  late.  When  the  Romagna  rose 
against  the  Temporal  Power  in  February,  she  posted 
after  them  to  Florence.  But  her  sons  were  nowhere 
to  be  seen,  and  their  destination  was  clearly  in- 


64  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

dicated  by  a  note  from  Louis  which  she  found  at  her 
hotel: 

'Your  affection  will  understand  us.  We  have  accepted 
engagements,  and  we  cannot  depart  from  them.  The  name 
we  bear  obliges  us  to  help  a  suffering  people  that  calls 
upon  us.  Arrange  that  my  sister-in-law  may  think  that  it 
was  I  who  carried  off  her  husband;  he  is  pained  by  the 
idea  that  he  has  hidden  one  action  of  his  life  from  her.' 

History  has  been  exercised  as  to  the  precise  nature 
of  the  'engagements'  assumed  by  the  young  men. 
The  titillating  spectacle  of  a  future  Emperor  in  a 
secret  society  has  inspired  the  hope  that  Louis  had 
actually  joined  the  Carbonari.  But  there  is  a  dis- 
tressing lack  of  evidence,  and  it  may  well  be  that 
they  had  merely  enlisted  in  the  rebel  forces  which 
were  campaigning  in  the  Papal  States.  Upon  either 
view  there  can  be  no  question  that  by  the  year  1831 
the  German  schoolboy  of  1820  had  become  an  Italian 
romantic. 

The  two  Princes  were  in  the  field  with  the  insur- 
gents. But  their  mother,  who  was  a  Beauharnais 
and  had  kept  house  for  Napoleon  in  the  Hundred 
Days,  was  disinclined  to  inactive  lamentation  and 
was  perfectly  capable  of  fetching  them  out  of  the 
firing-line.  On  the  following  morning  she  had  an 
interview  with  her  husband;  and  the  meeting  after 
twenty  years  between  that  independent,  cultivated 
lady  and  her  morose  relict  must  have  resembled  the 
rencounter,  if  one  may  employ  an  expression  of 
Mr.  Thomas  Hardy's  to  describe  a  situation  of  Mr. 
Bernard  Shaw's,  of  Mrs.  Clandon  and  Mr.  Cramp- 
ton  at  the  seaside  hotel  where  Gloria  met  her  dentist. 
The  husband  was  flurried  and  faintly  ridiculous.  He 


THE  PRINCE  65 

proposed  to  the  wife  whose  frivolity  had  shocked  him 
twenty  years  before  that  she  should  fetch  the  truants 
from  the  army;  for  himself  he  reserved  the  manly 
task  of  interviewing  the  Austrian  ambassador. 
Hortense  hesitated  to  compromise  her  political  repu- 
tation by  a  journey  to  the  rebel  forces  in  the  Papal 
States  and  remained  in  Florence,  where  her  husband 
subjected  her  to  a  daily  series  of  futile  suggestions. 
Meanwhile  the  Princes  were  in  command  of  the  in- 
surgents before  Civita  Castellana,  The  town  was 
carried  by  an  attack  projected  by  Prince  Louis  in 
accordance  with  the  principles  prevailing  in  the  Swiss 
army,  and  the  two  young  leaders  of  revolt  threatened 
Rome  itself.  The  Pope  opened  negotiations  with  the 
Princes.  But  at  this  stage  they  were  removed  from 
the  command  on  the  pretext  that  their  leadership 
might  prejudice  the  insurrection  in  the  eyes  of 
Europe.  An  Austrian  army,  true  to  Metternich's 
policy  that  the  world  must  be  made  safe  for  reaction, 
was  in  the  field  against  the  insurgents,  and  it  was 
ominous  that  its  commander  had  omitted  their  two 
names  from  his  announcement  of  an  amnesty.  Early 
in  March  Hortense,  alarmed  by  this  threat  of  out- 
lawry, started  from  Florence  in  pursuit  of  her  sons. 
She  went  first  to  the  army,  but  found  that  they  had 
left  it.  At  Perugia  she  was  told  of  their  achievements 
in  the  field;  they  were  further  to  the  east,  and  there 
was  fever  in  the  country.  She  quickened  her  pace 
towards  Ancona,  and  on  the  road  she  met  a  messenger 
with  the  news  that  the  elder  Prince  had  taken  the 
sickness.  At  Pesaro  they  told  her  that  he  was  dead, 
and  she  was  carried  fainting  into  Louis'  house. 

He  had  ceased  to  be  a  younger  son;  but  he  was 
ill  and  an  outlaw.    At  Ancona  the  Austrians  came 


66  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

up  with  them,  and  Headquarters  were  actually  in- 
stalled in  Hortense's  house.  But  although  the  whole 
town  believed  that  Prince  Louis  had  left  by  the  sail- 
ing packet  for  Corfu,  he  could  not  be  moved  from  his 
room;  and  through  eight  days  of  fever  Hortense, 
who  had  no  intention  of  losing  her  last  son  by  an 
Austrian  firing-party,  nursed  him  in  silence  with  a 
door  between  her  patient  and  the  room  of  a  polite 
but  deluded  Austrian  commander.  She  had  a  British 
passport  for  a  journey  across  France  to  England, 
and  at  dawn  on  Easter  Sunday  she  drove  out  of 
of  Ancona  with  Louis  in  the  full  glory  of  Miladi's 
footman  (it  was  the  golden  age  of  Jeames)  on  the 
box.  In  his  Odyssey  across  Italy  he  enjoyed  the 
advantages  which  would  have  fallen  to  the  hero  if 
Calypso,  instead  of  being  one  of  the  obstacles,  had 
formed  one  of  his  party.  Hortense  lavished  her  charm 
on  Austrian  officers  and  Italian  police,  and  she  gave 
evidence  of  a  real  gift  for  theatricals  which  should  have 
found  a  place  among  her  more  advertised  accomplish- 
ments. The  road  from  Ancona  to  Genoa  lay  between 
the  Scylla  of  inquiring  officials  and  the  Charybdis 
of  undue  recognition  by  incautious  friends.  But 
Louis  travelled  successfully  from  the  Adriatic  to  the 
Mediterranean,  sometimes  in  livery,  sometimes  in  the 
character  of  a  young  English  gentleman  with  a  re- 
markable accent  and  a  charming  but  (Hortense's 
English  was  confined  to  her  passport)  inarticulate 
mother.  From  Genoa  they  entered  France  by  sea; 
and  on  a  spring  evening  in  1831  the  Prince  looked  out 
at  Paris  from  his  hotel  windows  in  the  Rue  de  la  Paix. 
The  journey  from  the  Riviera  had  been  broken  at 
Fontainebleau,  where  Hortense  showed  her  son  the 
font  where  the  Emperor  had  stood  his  godfather, 


THE  PRINCE  67 

and  all  along  the  road  he  saw  French  towns,  French 
men,  French  women,  French  soldiers.  The  Govern- 
ment was  promptly  informed  of  their  arrival,  and  a 
suspicious  Prime  Minister  presented  himself  at  the 
hotel.  On  the  next  day  Hortense  was  taken  to  the 
Palais  Royal  with  an  air  of  operatic  secrecy.  She 
was  shown  into  a  small  bedroom,  and  almost  to  slow 
music  King  Louis  Philippe  arrived  with  his  sister 
and  his  Queen  in  an  impenetrable  atmosphere  of  con- 
spiracy. The  royal  family  of  France  was  hardly 
adapted  to  furtive  entrances,  and  when  Hortense  had 
reassured  them  that  she  had  no  intention  of  remaining 
in  Paris,  the  interview  became  more  genial.  But  on 
her  return  to  the  hotel  she  found  her  son  suffering 
from  a  virulent  return  of  his  illness,  and  utterly 
unable  to  leave  for  London.  The  Government,  which 
regarded  without  enthusiasm  the  presence  in  Paris 
of  a  Bonaparte  Prince,  displayed  a  touching  anxiety 
as  to  his  health ;  and  when  great  crowds  honoured  the 
day  of  the  Emperor's  death  by  piling  flowers  round 
the  base  of  the  Colonne  de  la  Grande  Armee,  its 
concern  at  his  continued  inability  to  leave  became 
positively  maternal.  Anxious  inquirers  from  the 
Tuileries  pressed  into  his  bedroom,  and  their  solici- 
tude was  followed  up  by  a  curt  order  to  leave  Paris. 
It  was  injudicious  for  the  Orleans  monarchy  to 
tolerate  a  Bonaparte  in  the  Rue  de  la  Paix  with  a 
crowd  of  Bonapartists  in  the  Place  Vendome ;  and  at 
some  risk  to  himself  Louis  took  the  road  again  for 
London.  His  journey  across  France  had  taught  him 
in  wayside  talks  and  printsellers'  windows  that  the 
memory  of  the  Empire  was  not  dead.  He  had  heard 
the  roar  of  a  great  crowd  surging  up  the  street  to  do 
honour  to  the  Emperor,  and  in  that  spring  journey 


68  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

which    followed    on    his    Italian    escapade    Louis 
Napoleon  became  a  Bonapartist. 

The  subjects  of  King  William  IV.  were  undis- 
turbed by  the  arrival  of  Hortense  and  her  son  at  a 
hotel  in  St.  James's  Street.  The  world  was  far  too 
interested  in  the  prospects  of  the  Reform  Bill,  and  the 
even  flow  of  Mr.  Greville's  diary  was  not  broken  by 
their  appearance  in  polite  society.  The  news  that  a 
nephew  of  Napoleon  was  ill  with  jaundice  so  near  to 
the  new  glories  of  Regent  Street  was  of  less  interest 
than  the  cholera  scare ;  and  while  Mr.  Greville  was  in- 
quiring in  what  pattern  of  crown  Queen  Adelaide 
desired  to  suffer  coronation,  Hortense  took  a  house  in 
Holies  Street  and  began  to  look  up  her  English 
friends.  The  Whigs  have  always  displayed  a  pen- 
chant for  the  enemies  of  their  country,  and  she  had 
formed  a  few  English  connections  during  the  interval 
of  peace  before  Trafalgar.  Whilst  Talleyrand  looked 
on  with  suspicion  from  the  French  embassy,  the  great 
ladies  whose  husbands  were  following  Lord  John  into 
the  lobby  on  Reform  sent  cards  to  Holies  Street;  and 
Hortense  was  presented  everywhere  by  the  Duchess 
of  Bedford,  whilst  her  son  perseveringly  inspected 
the  sights  of  London.  The  city  had  been  transformed 
by  the  reconstructions  of  the  Regency  into  a  dream  of 
elegance  in  stucco,  nor  were  the  miracles  of  science 
disregarded  in  a  visit  to  the  Thames  Tunnel.  At  one 
moment  the  Prince  wrote  to  Louis  Philippe  begging 
for  permission  to  serve  his  country;  but  a  cautious 
Prime  Minister  insisted  that  he  should  discard  the 
dangerous  name  of  Napoleon,  and  the  young  man 
preferred  to  remain  in  exile.  The  travellers  proposed 
to  return  to  Switzerland  by  way  of  Belgium,  and  this 
choice  of  route  alarmed  Prince  Leopold  of  Saxe- 


THE  PRINCE  69 

Coburg,  whose  bereavement  had  just  been  consoled  by 
the  gift  of  the  new  Kingdom.  It  became  necessary  for 
Louis  to  declare  that  he  had  no  sinister  designs  on 
Brussels.  The  Belgian  route  was  abandoned,  and  he 
retired  with  his  mother  to  Tunbridge  Wells  to  wait  for 
passports. 

Early  in  August  they  landed  at  Calais,  and  Louis 
re-entered  the  atmosphere  of  the  Empire.  Hortense 
had  decided  that  an  excitable  young  man  had  better 
be  kept  away  from  the  somewhat  explosive  atmo- 
sphere of  Paris;  but  she  employed  the  journey  across 
France  to  improve  his  Bonapartist  education.  When 
the  Army  of  England  was  in  the  Pas  de  Calais  a 
quarter  of  a  century  before,  she  had  been  a  frequent 
visitor  at  the  cantonments.  She  could  tell  him  in 
those  summer  days  of  1831  which  were  the  old  French 
lines  and  the  moorings  of  that  fleet  which  never  sailed. 
He  saw  the  Emperor's  camp  from  the  top  of  the 
column  behind  Boulogne,  and  the  little  house  at  Pont- 
de-Briques  where  the  orders  were  dictated  which 
swung  the  Grande  Armee  from  the  English  Channel 
to  Austerlitz.  Then  they  went  driving  along  the  dusty 
roads  of  France  by  Chantilly  to  the  northern  edge 
of  Paris,  and  at  every  turn  of  the  road  Hortense 
banked  the  fires  of  memory  with  tales  of  the  Empire. 
At  Rueil  they  found  that  a  rich  man  had  bought 
Malmaison  and  admitted  only  ticket-holders:  Jose- 
phine's daughter  had  no  ticket  except  her  memories. 
But  the  church  was  open,  and  they  stood  together  by 
her  mother's  grave.  Circling  round  Paris,  they  passed 
Versailles  and  took  the  great  road  to  the  south  by 
Melun.  France  seemed  full  of  voices  murmuring  the 
Imperial  story.  There  were  old  prints  on  every  wall 
and  old  tales  on  every  tongue  which  set  Louis  wonder- 


70  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

ing  vaguely  whether  the  past  Empire  had  perhaps  a 
future;  and  when  at  last  they  repassed  the  Swiss 
frontier,  the  young  man  who  had  left  Arenenberg  as 
a  romantic  lover  of  Italian  liberty  returned  to  his  exile 
as  the  youngest  and  bitterest  recruit  of  the 
Bonapartists. 


VI 

His  brother's  death  gave  Prince  Louis  a  step  in  the 
Napoleonic  hierarchy,  and  he  found  himself  at 
twenty-three  the  heir  of  Queen  Hortense.  But  he  was 
not  yet  the  heir  of  the  Empire,  and  family  discipline 
was  too  well  maintained  for  any  change  in  the  succes- 
sion. For  the  faithful  there  was  still  an  Emperor ;  the 
King  of  Rome  had  rucceeded  to  his  father,  and  some- 
where beyond  the  mists  Napoleon  II.  was  reigning  in 
Vienna  in  spite  of  Metternich  and  the  long  illness 
under  which  he  was  fading  into  a  figure  of  pale  ro- 
mance. Louis  had  offered  to  join  him  in  captivity; 
but  no  word  came  from  Schonbrunn,  and  perhaps  the 
letter  was  never  delivered. 

The  Prince  returned  to  his  lake  in  Switzerland 
with  a  new  faith  in  his  dynasty.  He  could  not  fail 
to  see  that  of  the  younger  men  he  stood  next  to 
the  dying  Due  de  Reichstadt,  and  he  turned  from  the 
life  of  a  sporting  Swiss  landowner  to  the  more  serious 
interests  of  an  heir  presumptive.  His  rooms  were 
furnished  with  maps  and  accoutrements,  and  when  a 
Polish  deputation  arrived  to  offer  him  the  leadership 
of  a  hopeless  insurrection,  he  seemed  to  have  entered 
the  full  stream  of  European  politics.  The  national 
movement  in  Warsaw  had  a  curiously  French  flavour. 
The  tricolour  cockade  was  reverently  carried  in  pro- 
cession on  a  cushion  like  a  sacred  relic,  and  there  were 
queer  tales  of  a  French  army  half  seen  marching  in 

71 


72  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

the  mist  at  night.  The  ghost  of  the  Grande  Armee 
walked  Lithuania  in  1831;  and  it  seemed  natural  to 
appeal  for  the  assistance  of  cun  jeune  Bonaparte 
apparaissant  sur  nos  plages  (the  coast  of  Poland  has 
much  in  common  with  the  seaboard  of  Illyria;  but 
Polish  patriotism  has  never  been  confined  within  the 
narrow  limits  of  literal  exactitude)  le  drapeau  tri- 
colore  a  la  main/  But  the  invitation  was  refused. 
Prince  Louis  was  vowed  to  another  quest;  and  he 
was  no  longer  prepared  to  crusade  promiscuously  in 
the  cause  of  liberty. 

All  through  the  autumn  and  winter  of  1831  he 
worked  in  his  room  at  Arenenberg,  and  in  the  spring 
a  pamphlet  appeared  which  contained  his  first  mani- 
festo as  a  Bonapartist.  There  was  not  yet  an 
organised  body  of  Bonapartists  to  which  he  could 
appeal ;  but  France  under  Louis  Philippe  was  full  of 
a  vague,  thwarted  belief  in  the  sovereignty  of  the 
people.  It  was  an  age  of  lost  illusions.  The  Revolu- 
tion of  1830  had  opened  with  a  flourish  of  republican 
trumpets  and  ended  with  a  deadening  roll  of 
bourgeois  drums,  and  Paris  began  to  stir  uneasily. 
As  in  all  periods  of  discontent,  there  was  a  rank  and 
bitter  growth  of  political  caricature,  in  which  the 
genius  of  Daumier  cut  savagely  at  the  unheroic  figure 
of  the  King.  The  country  had  begun  to  despise  its 
new  masters,  and  men  would  believe  any  meanness 
of  the  Government.  They  came  together  easily  into 
crowds,  and  as  they  learnt  that  it  is  not  difficult  to 
force  up  a  few  paving-stones  and  turn  an  omnibus  on 
its  side,  the  barricades  began  to  become  a  political 
habit.  There  was  an  intermittent  rattle  of  musketry 
in  the  streets  of  Paris,  as  the  National  Guard  de- 
fended royal  law  and  bourgeois  order;  and  the 


THE  PRINCE  73 

Orleans  monarchy  drifted  steadily  further  from  its 
popular  origins. 

In  this  air  of  discontent  Prince  Louis  propounded 
in  his  Reveries  Politiques  a  republican  type  of 
Bonapartism  which  was  intended  to  unite  behind 
Napoleon  II.  all  the  parties  of  opposition.  His 
doctrine  was  broad-based  upon  quotations  from 
Montesquieu,  and  he  introduced  himself  as  a  republi- 
can in  theory.  But  his  affection  for  the  Republic 
was  purely  platonic,  and  under  the  pressure  of 
practical  politics  and  the  exigencies  of  national  de- 
fence he  avowed  himself  an  Imperialist.  'Si  le  Rhin 
etait  uneimer,  si  la  vertu  etait  tou jours  le  seul  mobile, 
sd  le  merite  parvenait  seul  au  pouvoir,  alors  je  voudrais 
une  Republique  pure  et  simple.  Mais  .  .  '  There 
is  a  faint  irony  in  the  circumstance  that  it  was  the 
Second  Empire  which  lost  the  Rhine  frontier  in  1870 
and  the  Third  Republic  which  reconquered  it  in  1918. 
But  in  the  Reveries  of  1832  France  was  directed  away 
from  the  middle-aged  expedients  of  the  Orleans 
monarchy  and  the  visionary  idealism  of  a  Republic 
towards  the  superior  merits  of  'un  gouvernement  qui 
procurdt  tous  les  avantages  de  la  Republique  sans 
entramer  les  memes  inconvenients'  and  the  author 
obligingly  appended  the  draft  of  an  Imperial  con- 
stitution in  which  the  hereditary  principle  was 
tempered  by  plebiscite. 

The  gospel  of  St.  Helena  was  closely  followed  in 
the  Reveries  of  Arenenberg.  Democracy  was  assured 
by  a  parliamentary  constitution  and  the  right  of  the 
people  to  approve  by  direct  vote  the  succession  to 
the  throne.  Peace  without  conquests  was  to  be  the 
programme  of  French  foreign  policy;  and  the  doctrine 
of  nationality,  so  fashionable  since  the  Peace  of 


74  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Vienna  and  so  interesting  to  a  young  man  who  had 
seen  service  in  Italy,  was  respected  by  a  declaration 
that  France  was  the  natural  ally  of  all  free  nations  and 
by  an  insistence  that  their  sovereign  should  grant  to 
them  the  institutions  which  they  demand.  Provision 
was  even  made  for  the  career  of  an  energetic  cousin 
of  an  ailing  Emperor :  on  a  demise  of  the  Crown  'si  le 
fils  ou  le  plus  proche  parent  du  dernier  Empereur  ne 
convient  pas  a  la  nation  (and  one's  uncles  would 
afford  a  strikingly  uninviting  prospect),  les  deux 
chambres  proposeront  un  nouvel  Empereur,  et  toute 
proposition  passera  a  la  rectification  du  peuple/ 
Louis  was  indisposed  to  pass  his  life  as  a  Prince 
of  the  Empire ;  and  although  he  was  not  prepared  to 
supersede  Napoleon  II.,  he  had  few  doubts  as  to  who 
would  be  Napoleon  III. 

In  a  few  weeks  his  time  came,  and  on  a  July  day 
in  1832  the  Due  de  Reichstadt  faded  out  of  life. 
His  father  was  dead;  his  uncles  were  insignificant 
and  old.  But  he  left  a  young  cousin  by  a  Swiss  lake 
who  was  the  heir  of  the  Empire.  When  Louis 
Napoleon  became  the  Bonaparte  pretender,  he  was  a 
horse-faced  young  man  of  twenty-four.  He  wore 
a  pointed  beard  with  a  romantic  air  and  might,  to 
all  appearances,  have  fluttered  round  George  Sand 
or  sat  cheering  on  a  strapontin  at  the  first  night  of 
Hernani.  His  portrait  was  painted  about  this  time 
by  Cottrau,  a  cheerful  young  painter  whose  loud 
laugh,  straw  hat,  and  Byron  collar  must  have  sent 
a  breath  from  the  Quartier  Latin  over  the  Lake  of 
Constance;  and  one  sees  in  the  picture  one  of  those 
bearded  young  men  in  a  high  cravat  who  formed  the 
public  of  Victor  Hugo  and  the  raw  material  of  the 
Vie  de  Boheme. 


THE  PRINCE  75 

But  with  his  accession  to  the  full  dignity  of  a 
French  pretender  Prince  Louis  assumed  a  more 
solemn  aspect.  It  became  his  business  to  assure  public 
opinion  by  the  publication  of  political  studies  that  he 
had  found  a  statesmanlike  employment  for  his  leisure, 
and  with  the  assistance  of  his  barber  he  proceeded  to 
the  first  of  those  modifications  of  his  appearance  which 
were  to  make  him  the  delight  of  caricaturists.  A 
moustache  was  retained  as  an  indication  to  the  world 
that  he  was  a  soldier,  although  his  uncle  had  con- 
trived to  make  this  obvious  with  the  shaved  face  of  a 
priest.  But  the  beard  vanished,  leaving  no  trace 
except  a  slight  imperial ;  and  in  his  uniform  he  looked 
much  like  any  slim  young  officer  of  the  French  army 
which  marched  against  Antwerp  with  Marshal 
Gerard  in  1832. 

With  his  new  responsibilities  he  proceeded  to  the 
composition  of  a  second  book,  interrupting  his  work 
in  the  autumn  with  a  second  visit  to  London.  On 
the  way  through  Belgium  he  drove  out  with  his  maps 
to  Waterloo;  and  as  he  explored  the  ground,  it  is  to 
be  feared  that  he  did  not  escape  the  more  obvious  re- 
flections which  haunt  that  undulating  but  platitudin- 
ous neighbourhood.  In  London  he  became  unwell, 
suffering,  as  a  tribute  to  English  local  colour,  from 
ele  spleen,3  and  he  reported  to  his  mother  that  M. 
Hugo's  new  novel  Notre-Dame  de  Paris  was  unsuit- 
able literature  fpr  an  invalid.  Then,  as  the  winter 
came  on,  he  returned  to  Switzerland  and  abandoned 
himself  to  the  allied  pursuits  of  composition  and 
proof-reading. 

The  Considerations  Politiques  et  Militaires  sur  la 
Suisse,  which  appeared  in  1833,  formed  an  impressive 
addition  to  his  published  works.  The  title  alone  had 


76  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

an  air  of  dull  distinction  which  was  worthy  of  any 
reigning  family  in  Europe;  one  would  hardly  have 
been  surprised  to  find  it  among  the  juvenilia  of  Prince 
Albert.  But  the  book  was  something  more  than  an 
inventory  of  the  political  virtues  of  the  Swiss  Repub- 
lic. Opening  with  an  ominous  apology  for  the  number 
of  his  references  to  France,  the  Prince  proceeded  to  a 
restatement  of  Bonapartist  doctrine.  The  necessities 
of  his  subject  compelled  him  to  display  a  tedious 
knowledge  of  cantonal  constitutions  and  the  organisa- 
tion of  the  Swiss  army;  but  in  the  digressions  from 
which,  like  Tristram  Shandy,  the  book  derives  its 
main  interest  he  returned  to  more  familiar  ground. 
Napoleon  reappears  as  'Empereur  plebeien.'  His 
policy  is  to  be  judged  by  his  intentions  rather  than 
by  his  achievements;  and  in  the  true  spirit  of  the 
gospel  according  to  Las  Cases  Prince  Louis  sketched 
the  programme  of  the  Liberal  Empire  which  was  to 
have  followed  a  victory  at  Waterloo : 

'S'il  cut  ete  vainqueur,  on  aurait  vu  le  duche  de  Farsovie 
se  changer  en  nationalite  de  Pologne,  la  Westphalie  se 
changer  en  nationalite  allemande,  la  vice-royaute  d'ltalie 
se  changer  en  nationalite  italienne.  En  France,  un 
regime  liberal  eut  remplace  le  regime  dictatorial;  partout 
stabilite,  liberte,  independance,  au  lieu  de  nationalite  s 
incompletes  el  d 'institutions  transitoires.' 

The  bright  picture  which  the  First  Empire  had  left 
unfinished  might  be  completed,  as  the  Prince  hinted 
broadly,  by  a  Second  Empire  which  should  be  'un 
pouvoir  national,  c'est-a-dire  un  pouvoir  dont  tous  les 
elements  se  retrempent  dans  le  peuple,  seul  source  de 
tout  ce  qui  est  grand  et  genereux!  Such  were  the  pros- 
pects for  France  and  Europe  at  which  Prince  Louis 


By  permission  of  Longmans,  Green  &  Co. 

Queen  Hortense 

After  a  picture  in  the  Arenenberg  Collection 


THE  PRINCE  77 

glanced  in  the  intervals  of  his  more  relevant  reflec- 
tions on  the  political  importance  of  Zurich  and  the 
military  responsibilities  of  Appenzell. 

His  quiet  life  by  the  lake  was  resumed  with  ap- 
propriate interludes  of  gentlemanly  recreation.  In 
the  four  years  which  intervened  between  his  accession 
to  the  pretendership  and  his  first  attempt  to  seize 
power  in  France  there  was  little  change  in  the  even 
tenor  of  his  days.  In  the  summer  he  went  into  camp 
with  the  artillery,  and  in  the  winter  he  skated  on  the 
lake  until  tea-time,  whilst  his  mother  wore  all  her  furs 
and  ventured  on  the  ice  in  a  little  sledge.  At  nights 
he  read  and  wrote  and  corrected  proofs,  with  an  oc- 
casional game  of  billiards,  and  by  day  he  planned 
roads  and  bridges  in  the  grounds  or  watched  the 
fuliginous  progress  of  the  steam-boat  ( it  was  the  year 
1835)  across  the  lake.  Hortense  became  the  centre 
of  a  little  French  colony,  and  there  was  a  gentle  flow 
of  amusing  visitors  to  the  chateau.  Madame  Recamier 
came,  all  in  black,  to  exchange  Directoire  gossip  about 
the  Incroyables.  Chateaubriand  called  after  a  cor- 
respondence of  exhausting  chivalry  with  his  hostess; 
and  a  large  negroid  gentleman  named  Dumas,  half 
genius  and  half  journalist,  was  asked  to  dinner.  That 
night  there  was  a  little  music  in  the  drawing-room, 
and  Hortense  sang  one  of  her  old  songs : 

'  Out,  vous  plairez  et  vous  vaincrez  sans  cesse; 
Mars  et  I' amour  suivront  partout  vos  pas: 
De  vos  succes  gardes  la  douce  ivresse, 
Soyez  heureux,  mais  ne  m'oubliez  pas.' 

It  was  the  song  which  she  had  sung  to  the  Emperor 
on  the  night  before  he  drove  away  to  the  campaign 


78  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

of  Wagram,  and  Josephine  had  sat  watching  his  face, 
because  there  was  something  of  her  own  story  in  the 
words.  At  the  end  of  the  song,  Napoleon  told  his 
wife  that  she  was  the  kindest  thing  on  earth  and 
kissed  her  and  turned  unhappily  away.  The  Empress 
had  sat  weeping  in  the  salon;  and  twenty-five  years 
later,  when  the  Emperor  and  his  Empress  were  both 
dead  four  thousand  miles  apart,  Hortense  sang  the 
old  song  in  exile  for  Dumas. 

The  Prince  was  a  grave  young  man  to  whom  the 
world  was  beginning  to  pay  the  compliment  of  slight 
attention.  Switzerland  honoured  him  with  the  free- 
dom of  Thurgau  and  a  captaincy  in  the  Bernese 
artillery.  Rumour  joined  his  name  with  the  Queen 
of  Portugal  as  an  intending  consort  and  afforded  him 
an  opportunity  for  the  publicity  of  a  dementi. 
Energetic  friends  urged  upon  him  the  possibilities 
of  the  Tagus  as  the  starting  point  of  a  progress  by 
way  of  the  Manzanares  to  the  Seine  itself.  But  he 
was  indisposed  to  make  the  detour.  His  corres- 
pondence was  increasing,  and  in  1835  he  brought  out 
a  Manuel  d'Artillerie,  which  demonstrated  that  the 
family  interest  in  gunnery  originated  at  Toulon  in 
1793  had  been  maintained.  The  book  was  long, 
laborious,  and  technical,  and  by  its  solid  qualities 
it  incurred  the  suspicion  that  the  Prince  owed  some- 
thing to  collaboration.  But  it  was  a  serious  achieve- 
ment, and  he  distributed  it  broadcast  to  the  military 
profession  in  France  and  the  rest  of  Europe.  It  was 
something  to  have  convinced  the  world  that  there 
was  still  a  Bonaparte. 

But  he  found  this  distinction  unsatisfying.  Like 
his  brother,  he  was  in  love  with  a  handsome  cousin; 
and  he  might  have  married  her  at  some  little  Swiss 


THE  PRINCE  79 

church  and  subsided  into  happiness.  But  it  was 
the  family  metier  to  sit  upon  thrones;  and  since 
thrones  are  not  conquered  by  publicity  alone,  he  went 
forward. 


VII 

BONAPARTISM  in  the  year  1836  was  a  barren  enthus- 
iasm for  the  memory  of  a  dead  man.  It  was  an 
historical  sentiment  rather  than  a  political  cause. 
Frenchmen  were  prepared  to  stand  cheering  as  the 
statue  of  Napoleon  swung  once  more  into  place  on  the 
Vendome  column  or  to  watch  the  workmen  carving 
the  names  of  victories  on  the  Arc  de  Triomphe.  They 
bought  the  innumerable  Napoleonic  picture-books  and 
crowded  to  any  theatre  where  an  actor  could  be  found 
to  play  the  part  of  the  Emperor.  But  they  made  no 
conscious  connection  between  this  pleasant  exercise  of 
the  imagination  and  the  real  politics  of  the  day.  The 
reign  of  Louis  Philippe  was  a  dismal  triumph  of 
middle  age,  an  age  of  reason  as  depressing  as  the 
administration  of  Walpole;  and  old  men  might  stir 
their  memories  and  young  men  their  imaginations  with 
the  picture  of  a  more  vivid  period  when  the  Grenadiers 
of  the  Guard  went  swinging  through  the  Carrousel 
and  France  was  unacquainted  with  the  less  heroic 
figures  of  M.  Thiers  and  M.  Guizot.  But  they  saw 
their  visions  without  any  practical  desire  to  reinstate 
a  Bonaparte  in  the  Tuileries.  The  Empire  was  over. 
The  Emperor  (it  was  the  most  dramatic  turn  of  his 
story  and  gave  it  a  modish  flavour  of  romantic  senti- 
ment) had  died  on  an  island  four  thousand  miles 
away,  and  one  knew  nothing  of  his  family:  perhaps 

80 


THE  PRINCE  81 

they  were  dead  also.  Politicians  were  either  Orleanist 
or  Republican  or  Legitimist;  but  they  were  never 
Bonapartist.  The  great  movement  which  multiplied 
little  bronzes  of  the  Emperor  and  filled  the  print- 
sellers'  shops  with  scenes  of  his  career  was  not 
Bonapartist:  it  was  Napoleonic.  Prolific  of  poetry 
and  perorations,  it  was  without  a  practical  programme 
or  dynastic  loyalty.  The  eyes  of  France  were  turned 
to  St.  Helena;  but  they  did  not  look  towards 
Arenenberg. 

But  slowly  in  Switzerland  a  Bonapartist  group 
was  beginning  to  form  round  Prince  Louis.  His 
mother's  friends  respected  his  ambitions,  and  gradu- 
ally the  circle  round  her  fire  became  a  conspiracy 
which  was  to  grow  in  time  into  the  Second  Empire. 
Queen  Hortense  possessed  that  remarkable  attribute 
of  royalty,  a  reader.  Her  reader  had  a  husband ;  and 
when  Mile.  Cochelet  married  Colonel  Parquin  of  the 
Guard,  the  Prince  enlisted  his  first  recruit.  But  it  was 
not  enough  to  sit  in  a  corner  and  talk  over  old  times 
whilst  Hortense  played  softly  on  her  piano  to  enter- 
tain the  ladies;  and  when  an  excitable  young  man 
named  Fialin  arrived  from  England  with  an  introduc- 
tion, the  Prince's  conversation  became  more  practical. 
His  new  friend,  who  called  himself  for  no  very  obvious 
reason  the  Vicomte  de  Persigny,  had  begun  life  in  the 
Hussars;  but  discouraged  by  the  tedium  of  barracks 
in  peace-time,  he  transferred  his  activities  to  the 
more  bellicose  atmosphere  of  Parisian  journalism. 
Bonapartism  came  upon  him  under  circumstances 
which  Imperialist  writers  have  not  hesitated  to  com- 
pare to  those  in  which  St.  Paul  came  by  a  greater 
faith.  On  a  business  journey  into  Germany,  as  he 
was  driving  along  a  road  for  the  sufficient  reason  that 


82  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

he  hoped  to  meet  a  lady  whom  he  had  seen  once  before, 
his  coachman  stood  up  on  the  box,  and,  at  the  sight  of 
a  young  man,  waved  his  hat  with  a  strange  shout  of 
'Vive  Napoleon!'  The  young  man,  it  seemed,  was 
familiar  in  those  parts  as  a  nephew  of  the  Emperor 
and  the  son  of  Queen  Hortense.  The  names  set 
Persigny  dreaming  of  the  Empire;  and  when  he 
reached  the  end  of  his  journey,  he  impolitely  forgot 
the  lady  for  whom  he  had  taken  it  in  a  queer  revela- 
tion which  came  to  him  in  the  garden  of  a  German 
palace.  He  seemed  to  see  through  the  summer  night 
a  great  march  of  the  armies  of  France  roaring  their 
loyalty  to  a  new  Napoleon;  and  he  returned  to  Paris 
with  a  revivalist  faith  in  the  dynasty.  His  exuberant 
style  had  been  contained  with  difficulty  within  the 
narrow  limits  of  the  Temps,  and  he  proceeded  with 
enthusiasm  and  relief  to  the  publication  of  a  magazine 
of  his  own,  of  which  there  was  one  number.  Pitched 
in  the  shrillest  key  of  Bonapartism,  it  advocated  the 
return  of  France  and  the  whole  western  world  to  the 
true  faith;  the  motto  of  this  remarkable  periodical 
was  a  quotation  from  Napoleon — ' J'ai  dessouille  la 
Revolution,  ennobli  les  peuples  et  raffermi  les  rots' — 
and  its  sole  contributor  roamed  from  politics  to 
economics  with  a  haunting  refrain  of  'I'Empereur, 
tout  I'Empereur.3  The  calm  of  Paris  was  undisturbed 
by  his  eloquence.  But  Persigny,  who  regarded  him- 
self as  an  apostle,  was  endeavouring  to  attract  the 
attention  of  his  Messiah.  He  called  on  King  Joseph 
in  England  with  the  full  programme  of  a  Bonaparte 
restoration.  But  his  host,  who  had  reigned  in  Madrid 
during  the  Peninsular  War,  was  already  sufficiently 
instructed  as  to  the  discomfort  incidental  to  the  oc- 
cupation of  thrones  by  uninvited  persons ;  and  Joseph 


THE  PRINCE  83 

passed  him  on  to  Prince  Louis  in  Switzerland  with 
a  polite  letter. 

Persigny  came  to  Arenenberg  with  an  ideal  and 
left  it  with  a  plan.  The  young  man  whom  he  had 
met  in  the  way  to  his  rendezvous  had  grown  up.  The 
two  became  allies,  and  there  was  some  close  talk 
among  the  maps  in  the  Prince's  room.  It  was  agreed 
that  the  time  had  come  for  an  attempt  on  the  French 
throne,  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  much  of  the 
Prince's  impulse  and  more  of  his  plan  were  derived 
from  Persigny.  He  was  launched  on  his  career  as  a 
pretender  by  the  susceptible  young  man  whom  he 
had  passed  on  a  road  in  Germany;  and  that  singular 
journalist,  who  lived  to  write  a  book  on  the  Pyramids, 
did  much  to  promote  a  sphinx  to  be  Emperor  of  the 
French. 

The  conspirators  in  Hortense's  drawing-room  felt 
that  among  civilians  there  might  be  a  pardonable 
lack  of  enthusiasm  for  any  change  of  dynasty.  King 
Louis  Philippe  undeniably  satisfied  the  somewhat 
limited  aspirations  of  the  bourgeoisie,  and  revolutions 
were  always  bad  for  trade.  But  there  remained  (had 
not  Prince  Louis  published  a  work  on  artillery  and 
Persigny  served  in  the  Hussars?)  the  army.  The 
temper  of  the  French  army  under  the  Orleans 
monarchy  was  peculiar.  Its  professional  grievances 
were  rarely  appreciated  by  a  government  which  was 
so  essentially  civilian,  and  it  still  contained  men  who 
had  served  under  Napoleon.  French  policy  was 
ostentatiously  pacific,  and  it  offered  to  the  army  no 
substitute  for  the  glories  of  a  European  war,  beyond 
frequent  changes  of  uniform  and  the  extreme  dis- 
comfort of  campaigns  in  Algeria.  It  was  even  a 
trifle  effaced  as  the  guardian  of  domestic  order  by  the 


84  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

faintly  ridiculous  figures  of  the  National  Guard.  In 
such  a  service  it  might  well  be  that  a  return  to  the 
Empire  would  be  welcomed,  and  it  was  resolved  to 
raise  the  army  against  the  King. 

The  plan  which  was  adopted  was  vaguely  modelled 
on  the  return  of  the  Emperor  from  Elba.  The  blood- 
less revolution  of  1815  was  to  be  repeated  by  the 
pretender  in  1836.  He  was  to  appear  suddenly  in 
a  frontier  town,  show  himself  to  the  troops  with  a 
Napoleonic  gesture,  and  as  the  scene  rang  with  the 
familiar  Vive  VEmpereur!  to  march  at  their  head  on 
Paris.  The  fortresses  of  the  eastern  frontier  were 
accessible  from  Switzerland,  and  the  irrespressible 
Persigny  flitted  from  garrison  to  garrison  testing 
the  state  of  opinion.  Eventually  it  was  decided  that 
the  attempt  should  be  made  at  Strasburg,  where  the 
civil  population  was  largely  republican  and  at  least 
one  unit  of  the  garrison  had  Napoleonic  traditions: 
the  4th  Artillery  had  been  Napoleon's  regiment  when 
he  wore  the  King's  uniform  before  the  Revolution, 
and  it  had  joined  him  at  Grenoble  on  the  seventh  of  the 
Hundred  Days. 

As  the  summer  went  on,  Prince  Louis  established 
himself  in  German  territory  at  a  convenient  distance 
from  Strasburg;  and  since  it  was  frequently  neces- 
sary for  the  officers  of  the  French  garrison  to  re- 
cuperate at  Baden-Baden  from  the  exertions  of  the 
barrack-square,  the  Prince  found  it  easy  to  make 
useful  acquaintances,  to  bow  in  the  right  direction, 
to  drop  a  gracious  hint  in  a  Casino  or  stir  the  ambition 
of  a  subaltern  with  a  grievance.  In  this  way  he 
enlisted  in  his  enterprise  a  dozen  young  men,  of  whom 
Lieutenant  Laity  of  the  Engineers  was  the  most 
ardent.  But  one  can  hardly  precipitate  a  military 


THE  PRINCE  85 

pronunciamiento  without  a  senior  officer,  and  the 
Prince  made  the  fortunate  discovery  of  a  disappointed 
colonel.  The  4th  Artillery,  with  its  faint  flavour  of 
the  Imperial  legend,  was  commanded  by  a  colonel  of 
the  Empire.  Colonel  Vaudrey  had  taken  his  guns 
into  action  at  Waterloo  with  a  division  of  D'Erlon's 
corps  which  was  sent  against  La  Haye  Sainte,  and  his 
kindly  recollection  of  the  Empire  was  stimulated  by 
the  Government's  recent  refusal  of  a  post  and  a 
perquisite.  But  colonels,  even  colonels  with  griev- 
ances, are  not  readily  accessible  to  pretenders,  and  it 
was  found  necessary  to  adopt  a  peculiar  means  of 
approach.  Vaudrey  (the  story  becomes  faintly 
Gallic)  was,  though  married,  a  lively,  a  susceptible 
colonel,  and  Prince  Louis  numbered  among  his  sup- 
porters an  operatic  contralto  of  undoubted  charm 
whom  he  cast  for  the  part  of  Delilah.  This  young 
lady,  who  was  the  widow  of  an  Englishman  of  exotic 
tastes,  had  adopted  the  Napoleonic  cult  with  the 
irrational  fervour  of  her  type.  She  was  devoted  to 
the  Prince,  but,  as  she  said,  'politiquement'  because, 
'a  dire  vrai,  il  me  fait  I'effet  d'une  femme';  and  from 
the  loftiest  motives  she  undertook  the  more  congenial 
task  of  fascinating  the  colonel.  He  heard  her  sing 
on  summer  nights  in  Strasburg  drawing-rooms;  and 
when  he  saw  her  with  the  Prince  in  the  Casino  at 
Baden-Baden,  he  asked  for  an  introduction.  Louis 
improved  the  occasion  by  explaining  his  political 
principles.  But  the  colonel  had  no  head  for  politics, 
and  returned  to  Strasburg  with  a  simple-minded 
devotion  to  duty  and  his  contralto.  The  Prince  fol- 
lowed up  the  acquaintance  with  a  mysterious  letter  in 
which  a  lady  named  Louise  Wernert  appeared  to  avow 
her  affection  for  the  colonel  with  unmaidenly  explicit- 


86  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

ness:  it  was  a  cypher  by  which  he  desired  to  convey 
his  reliance  on  Vaudrey.  But  the  decisive  blow  in  the 
conversion  of  the  colonel  was  struck  by  his  contralto. 
With  the  directness  of  an  enthusiast  she  informed  him 
that  his  advances  would  be  refused  until  he  joined  the 
conspiracy,  and  Vaudrey  ( what  else  could  a  suscepti- 
ble colonel  do?)  succumbed. 

As  the  autumn  came  on,  the  happy  pair  went  on 
leave  in  a  kind  of  Bonapartist  idyll,  and  the  Prince 
went  on  with  his  preparations.  The  Military  Gover- 
nor was  approached  without  success.  But  one  evening 
Prince  Louis  rode  across  the  bridge  of  Kehl  into 
Strasburg  and  addressed  a  roomful  of  officers  on  the 
sanctity  of  his  cause  and  the  bitterness  of  exile.  It 
was  a  small  room,  and  his  audience  did  not  number 
more  than  twenty-five ;  but  the  Prince  was  impressed 
by  their  enthusiasm,  and  he  returned  to  Switzerland 
with  a  strong  conviction  of  success.  He  left  his  home 
again  in  the  dawn  of  an  October  morning,  and  as  he 
went  Hortense  put  on  his  hand  a  plain  gold  ring 
engraved  with  the  names  Napoleon  Bonaparte  and 
Josephine  Tascher.  It  was  the  Emperor's  wedding- 
ring,  and  with  this  rather  tragic  talisman  he  took  the 
road  for  Strasburg. 

The  unwearying  Persigny  had  gathered  all  the 
characters  of  the  piece.  Colonel  Vaudrey  and  his 
Eleonore  were  recalled  from  their  peripatetic  dream 
of  Bonapartist  bliss,  and  the  young  gentlemen  of  the 
Strasburg  mess-rooms  were  warned  that  the  moment 
was  approaching.  On  the  evening  of  October  28, 1836, 
the  Prince,  who  had  entered  France  at  Neuf-Brisach, 
drove  into  Strasburg  by  the  south  road  from  Colmar. 
He  passed  the  night  in  the  town  at  some  lodgings 
which  Persigny,  true  to  the  spirit  of  opera  bouffe,  had 


THE  PRINCE  87 

taken  in  a  false  name.  The  next  day  was  spent  in 
paying  furtive  calls,  and  after  nightfall  he  met  the 
conspirators  in  a  ground-floor  room.  The  order  of 
events  was  arranged,  and  he  read  out  his  manifestoes. 
They  consisted  of  proclamations  addressed  to  the 
citizens  of  Strasburg,  the  army,  and  the  French 
people,  and  signed  in  the  Imperial  style  'Napoleon.3 
Opening  with  the  familiar  invocation  'On  vous  trahit!' 
they  reproached  the  government  of  Louis  Philippe 
with  ' des  institutions  sans  force,  des  lois  sans  liberte, 
une  paix  sans  prosperite  et  sans  calme,  enfin,  un 
present  sans  avenir/  and  demanded  a  National 
Assembly  to  be  followed  by  the  more  alluring  prospect 
of  a  young  man  who  presented  himself  'le  testament 
de  I'empereur  Napoleon  d'une  main,  I'epee  d'Aus- 
terlitz  de  I'autre.3  In  a  bolder  figure  he  exclaimed: 
fDu  rocher  de  Sainte-Helene  un  rayon  de  soleil 
mourant  a  passe  dans  mon  dmej ;  and  the  proclamation 
closed  with  one  of  those  chronological  appeals  that  are 
so  dear  to  French  politicians,  to  the  men  of  1789,  of 
March  20,  1815,  and  of  1830.  That  night  he  did  not 
sleep  and  wrote  two  letters  to  his  mother.  One  was  to 
be  sent  in  case  of  success,  and  the  other  announced  a 
failure. 

In  the  morning  five  men  slipped  out  of  the  house 
in  the  darkness  at  six  o'clock  and  walked  through 
the  falling  snow  to  the  barracks  of  the  4th  Artillery. 
The  Prince  was  transformed  into  a  colonel  in  the 
French  army;  and  Colonel  Parquin,  by  one  of  those 
sudden  promotions  which  form  a  pleasing  feature  of 
all  military  revolutions,  had  become  a  general.  One 
of  the  group  carried  a  tricolour  surmounted  by  the 
eagle  of  the  Empire,  and  they  hurried  past  a  mounted 
guard  into  the  barrack-square.  Vaudrey,  who  had 


88  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

paraded  his  command  at  an  early  hour,  received  his 
new  sovereign  respectfully.  There  was  a  roar  of 
'Vive  I'Empereur!'  and  the  Prince  responded  with  a 
speech  congested  with  historical  allusions  and  diversi- 
fied by  some  dramatic  business  with  the  eagle.  He 
was  applauded,  and  the  standard  was  solemnly 
entrusted  to  Vaudrey.  The  band  struck  up,  and  the 
regiment  marched  out  of  barracks  with  its  new 
Emperor  at  its  head.  Persigny  went  off  on  the  con- 
genial errand  of  arresting  the  Prefet,  and  the  main 
body  proceeded  with  the  Prince  and  the  colours  to  the 
barracks  of  the  46th  of  the  Line.  On  the  road  they  paid 
an  early  call  on  the  Military  Governor,  who  declined 
in  the  lightest  of  underwear  to  recognise  the  Prince  as 
Napoleon  II.  Parquin  was  detailed  to  deal  with  him 
and  pursued  him  about  the  house  through  a  multi- 
plicity of  doors  in  the  best  tradition  of  Palais  Royal 
farce.  But  in  his  hasty  transit  the  Governor  found  a 
moment  to  complete  his  dressing,  and  with  the  moral 
support  of  a  general's  uniform  he  emerged  victorious 
from  a  struggle  in  which  the  royalist  cause  was 
sustained  by  his  wife,  his  mother-in-law,  and  some 
stray  officers. 

Meanwhile  there  was  a  confused  scene  at  the  bar- 
racks of  the  46th  of  the  Line.  The  infantry  seemed 
unwilling  to  take  its  tone  from  the  artillery.  The 
sergeant  of  the  guard  was  strikingly  unresponsive 
when  the  Prince  announced  himself  as  the  son  of  the 
Emperor,  and  a  subaltern  declined  to  parade  the 
battalion.  A  dangerous  suspicion  began  to  spread: 
perhaps  the  short  young  man  was  an  impostor.  Some- 
one shouted  that  he  was  the  nephew  (if  no  stronger 
expression  was  used)  of  Colonel  Vaudrey,  and  the 
whole  conspiracy  foundered  on  the  incredulity  of  a 


Prince  Louis  Napoleon  (1836) 

From  an  engraving  by  Hall  and  a  drawing  by  Stewart 


THE  PRINCE  89 

few  privates  in  a  barrack-square.  The  colonel  of  the 
46th  roused  his  officers  and  drove  the  conspirators 
back  against  a  wall.  There  was  a  scuffle  in  which 
Vaudrey  lost  his  epaulettes.  But  the  Prince  declined 
to  permit  his  men  to  use  their  swords  on  the  infantry : 
the  return  of  the  Emperor  from  his  exile  was  to  be  as 
bloodless  as  the  march  on  Paris  in  1815.  He  was 
arrested  by  a  young  officer  who  lived  to  repent  his 
energy,  and  by  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  the 
attempt  on  Strasburg  had  failed.  The  piece  had 
been  carefully  staged;  but  a  few  badly  rehearsed 
supers  had  caused  it  to  break  down  in  the  second  act. 

Later  in  the  day  the  Prince  was  lodged  in  the  town 
gaol,  and  the  Military  Governor  proudly  reported 
to  Paris  that  order  reigned  in  Strasburg.  But  the 
message  went  by  semaphore,  and  there  was  fog  on 
the  line.  No  news  reached  Paris  until  the  evening  of 
the  following  day,  when  King  Louis  Philippe  and  his 
ministers  received  a  disquieting  fragment : 

'Ce   matin  vers   six   heures  Louis-Napoleon,  fits   de  la 

Duchesse  de  Saint-Leu,   qui   avait   dans  sa   confidence  le 

colonel    d'artillerie     Vaudrey,    a    parcouru    les    rues  de 
Strasbourg  avec  une  partie  de.  .  .    ' 

That  night  there  was  little  sleep  at  the  Tuileries; 
the  royal  ladies  flitted  anxiously  in  and  out  of  the 
council  which  sat  through  the  night,  and  the  Due 
d'Orleans  was  on  the  point  of  starting  for  Strasburg 
on  the  next  day,  when  the  full  news  arrived  and  the 
King  turned  to  the  more  congenial  business  of  con- 
ferring a  peerage  upon  the  Military  Governor.  The 
pretender  was  in  prison  with  his  conspirators,  and 
it  remained  for  the  Government  to  decide  upon  their 
future.  On  receipt  of  the  news  Hortense  had  got  into 


90  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

France  in  a  false  name  and  was  staying  outside  Paris, 
appealing  to  the  King  for  her  son's  life.  After  an 
imprisonment  of  twelve  days  the  Prince  was  driven  to 
Paris  in  a  post-chaise.  He  protested  against  this 
separation  from  his  friends  and  was  informed  that 
the  adroit  King  Louis  Philippe  had  avoided  the  un- 
pleasant publicity  of  a  state  trial  by  granting  him  a 
free  pardon.  The  pretender  was  to  have  no  op- 
portunity of  impressing  public  opinion  by  his  de- 
meanour in  the  dock,  and  his  attempt  on  the  throne 
was  systematically  ridiculed  by  a  stream  of  reports 
and  caricatures  of  a  half-witted  young  man  who  had 
dressed  himself  up  in  his  uncle's  uniform  and  was 
repenting  his  grotesque  adventure  in  floods  of  tears. 
But  the  quality  of  the  King's  mercy  was  diluted 
by  the  further  decision  to  deport  the  Prince  to 
America.  Hortense  was  not  permitted  to  visit  him 
in  detention,  and  he  wrote  begging  her  not  to  follow 
him  into  further  exile.  On  a  November  morning 
he  drove  out  of  Paris  by  the  road  to  the  western  ports 
which  the  Emperor  had  taken  twenty-one  years  before 
him,  and  instead  of  Rochefort  and  the  Bellerophon  he 
went  to  Lorient  and  (by  a  variation  in  mythology)  the 
Andromede.  As  he  went  on  board  the  French 
cruiser,  the  Sous-preset  handed  him  a  viaticum  of 
15,000  francs:  the  King  was  generous,  but  as  he  had 
secured  200,000  francs  from  the  Prince's  pockets  at 
Strasburg,  he  could  afford  to  be.  On  November  21, 
1836,  the  Andromede  sailed  from  Lorient  into  the 
Bay  of  Biscay;  and,  in  a  scene  which  has  rarely  pro- 
voked historians  to  reflect  or  Academicians  to  paint, 
Louis  Napoleon  left  France  in  a  warship. 


VIII 

NAPOLEON  had  been  exiled  on  a  rock  in  the  Atlantic: 
his  nephew  (it  was  typical  of  the  more  crowded  at- 
mosphere of  the  later  age)  was  exiled  to  New  York. 
It  was  a  sweeter,  simpler  New  York,  unguarded  as 
yet  by  Ellis  Island  or  the  menacing  gesture  of  colossal 
statuary  and  with  a  skyline  not  yet  serrated  by  the 
spectacular  application  of  steel  construction  to 
architecture,  a  "small  but  promising  capital,"  as  Mr. 
Henry  James  described  it,  "which  clustered  about  the 
Battery  and  overlooked  the  Bay,  and  of  which  the 
uppermost  boundary  was  indicated  by  the  grassy  way- 
sides of  Canal  Street."  In  the  clear  light  of  Emerson- 
ian America  and  across  this  mild  urban  scene  Prince 
Louis  Napoleon  walked  in  the  early  months  of  1837, 
when  Washington  Square  was  'enclosed  by  a  wooden 
paling,  which  increased  its  rural  and  accessible  appear- 
ance ;  and  round  the  corner  was  the  more  august  pre- 
cinct of  Fifth  Avenue,  taking  its  origin  at  this  point 
with  a  spacious  and  confident  air  which  already 
marked  it  for  high  destinies.' 

On  the  voyage  out  the  Prince  had  been  profoundly 
wretched.  He  had  failed,  and  it  appeared  from  his 
intention  to  become  a  farmer  in  the  New  World  that 
he  regarded  his  failure  as  final.  He  wrote  bravely 
to  his  mother  about  his  prospects  in  agriculture,  and 
he  endeavoured  to  buy  some  land  from  his  uncle 
Joseph.  But  that  cautious  potentate,  who  had  retired 

91 


92  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

to  gentility  in  England,  declined  to  answer  his 
nephew's  letters;  and  the  disapproval  of  his  family 
was  still  more  deeply  marked  by  the  action  of  King 
Jerome.  He  had  a  handsome  daughter,  and  before 
the  expedition  to  Strasburg  Louis  had  courted  her  in 
Switzerland.  It  was  understood  that  they  were  to 
marry,  and  the  dark  Mathilde  would  have  made  a 
noble  Empress  of  the  French.  But  her  father  was 
scandalised  by  the  young  man's  rashness  or  by  its 
failure,  and  he  expressed  his  sound  parental  instincts 
by  breaking  off  the  engagement.  The  news  reached 
Louis  before  his  ship  sailed ;  and  he  took  the  blow,  if 
one  may  judge  from  his  letters,  in  the  best  taste  of 
contemporary  romance : 

'Lorsque  je  revenais  II  y  a  quelques  mois  de  reconduire 
Mathilde,  en  rentrant  dans  le  pare,  j'ai  trouve  un  arbre 
rompu  par  I'orage,  et  je  me  suis  dit  a  moi-meme:  Notre 
mortage  sera  rompu  par  le  sort.' 

In  his  isolation  on  board  the  Andromede  the  Prince 
was  almost  a  tragic  figure,  and  one  can  hardly  wonder 
that  (it  was  the  year  1837)  he  stated  his  tragedy  in 
terms  of  Lamartine.  The  cruiser  had  sailed,  in  the 
best  tradition  of  maritime  romance,  with  sealed 
orders.  The  cautious  government  of  Louis  Philippe 
intended  to  isolate  the  pretender  in  the  obscurity  of 
a  long  sea  voyage  until  his  memory  had  faded,  and 
the  captain  was  directed  to  take  his  ship  to  the  United 
States  by  way  of  South  America.  They  passed  the 
Canaries  in  mid-December,  as  Prince  Louis  sat  writ- 
ing on  deck;  and  early  in  the  New  Year  the 
Andromede  ran  into  rough  weather  off  the  coast  of 
Brazil,  whilst  the  Prince  sought  inadequate  consola- 
tion in  a  set  of  Chateaubriand  from  the  ship's  library. 


THE  PRINCE  93 

There  was  a  long  wait  at  Rio,  which  so  far  stirred 
his  inherited  virtuosity  that  he  sketched  the  bay.  But 
at  last,  in  the  month  of  March,  1837,  his  imprisonment 
on  a  French  cruiser  came  to  an  end,  and  Prince 
Louis  walked  ashore  at  Norfolk,  Virginia. 

After  a  little  dinner  to  the  ship's  officers  he  went 
on  board  the  steamboat  for  Baltimore,  and  eluded 
the  persistent  inquiries  of  a  gentleman  who  followed 
him  twice  round  the  deck  in  the  interests  of  the  infant 
publicity  of  the  United  States.  The  journey  to  New 
York  was  resumed  by  way  of  Philadelphia,  and  on 
an  April  evening  in  the  year  of  Queen  Victoria's  (and 
President  Van  Buren's)  accession  the  Prince  was 
installed  at  the  Washington  Hotel,  Broadway,  in  a 
growing  metropolis  which  trailed  rapidly  away  to  the 
north  in  incipient  streets  with  high  numbers. 

His  arrival  in  New  York,  which  produced  a 
pleasant  stir,  brought  him  once  more  into  touch  with 
the  news  from  France;  and  it  was  of  a  character  to 
distract  him  from  the  prospects  of  agriculture  in 
America  and  to  revive  his  ambitions  as  a  pretender  to 
the  French  throne.  He  read  in  the  papers  that  seven 
of  the  conspirators  of  Strasburg  had  been  prosecuted 
in  January  and  acquitted  by  an  Alsatian  jury.  The 
irrepressible  Persigny  had  eluded  the  police  and  was 
conducting  propaganda  from  London.  But  the 
French  authorities  had  secured  Laity,  Parquin, 
Vaudrey,  and  his  contralto,  whose  white  satin  hat 
and  black  side  curls  were  an  ornament  of  the  dock. 
The  trial,  which  lasted  twelve  days,  abounded  in 
irrelevant  eloquence  in  the  best  tradition  of  French 
criminal  jurisprudence,  and  a  pleasing  element  of 
delay  was  introduced  by  the  necessity  of  translating 
the  entire  proceedings  into  German  for  the  benefit 


94  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

of  several  Alsatian  jurymen  who  knew  no  other 
language.  The  prosecution  called  ninety-one  wit- 
nesses :  but  as  every  prisoner  and  their  six  counsel  de- 
livered an  almost  uninterrupted  succession  of  political 
speeches,  the  trial,  which  was  largely  attended  by  the 
public,  turned  into  a  political  meeting  with  a  strong 
Bonapartist  bias.  When  Maitre  Thierret  by  a 
masterpiece  of  advocacy  disclosed  the  conclusive  fact 
that  the  prisoner  Laity  had  a  mother,  the  prosecution 
was  shaken.  But  when  Maitre  Parquin  went  one 
masterly  step  further  and  added  that  his  own  client 
in  the  dock  had  a  mother  also  and  (better  still)  a 
mother  of  eighty-two,  there  was  not  a  dry  eye  in  court. 
The  jury  retired  and  returned  in  twenty  minutes  with 
a  verdict  of  'Not  guilty':  there  was  a  scene  of  wild 
excitement  in  which  the  prisoners  embraced  their 
counsel  preparatory  to  an  evening  of  conviviality  and 
public  serenade  at  their  hotel. 

The  news  was  profoundly  interesting  to  a  young 
man  in  New  York.  The  expedition  to  Strasburg  had 
demonstrated  that  the  French  army  was  not  indiffer- 
ent to  a  Bonapartist  appeal.  But  from  the  acquittal 
of  his  friends  he  learnt  the  far  more  gratifying  fact 
that  there  was  a  civilian  public  for  his  views.  This 
discovery,  which  he  owed  to  the  collapse  of  the  Stras- 
burg prosecution,  modified  his  intention  to  stay 
permanently  in  America  and  threw  him  once  more  into 
the  attitude  of  a  French  pretender.  The  tone  of  his 
letters  to  Europe  became  less  resigned,  and  it  was 
with  the  cursory  glance  of  a  distinguished  visitor 
rather  than  the  more  anxious  scrutiny  of  an  immi- 
grant that  he  surveyed  the  American  scene. 

On  his  first  evening  in  New  York  he  was  invited 
to  step  along  Broadway  to  the  Old  City  Hotel,  where 


THE  PRINCE  95 

a  party  of  assorted  senators,  generals,  and  clergymen 
entertained  him.  This  circle,  from  which  he  received 
a  good  deal  of  hospitality,  found  him  well-mannered 
but  somewhat  silent,  with  an  odd  tendency  to  discuss 
his  destiny  and  his  future  reign  on  the  throne  of 
France.  An  American  poet  even  described  him 
with  that  licence  which  is  permitted  to  the  most  re- 
spectable poets,  as  'a  rather  dull  man  of  the  order  of 
Washington,'  and  he  was  believed  (it  was  so  delight- 
fully French  of  him)  to  exhibit  a  preference  for 
ladies'  society.  But  he  made  occasional  excursions 
beyond  the  somewhat  oppressive  gentility  of  his  new 
friends;  the  American  monde  was  apt,  as  Disraeli 
said,  to  resemble  'the  best  society  in  Manchester' ;  and 

v 

he  was  sometimes  to  be  found  playing  billiards  in  the 
public  room  or  taking  a  glass  of  claret  with  the 
initiated  of  the  Order  of  Owls  in  the  cupola  of  Holt's 
Hotel.  But  these  gaieties,  punctuated  with  a  more 
sober  course  of  visits  to  a  great-aunt  of  Mr.  Roose- 
velt and  a  camp  meeting  of  Wesleyan  Methodists, 
hardly  sufficed  to  occupy  the  Prince ;  and  as  a  serious 
student  of  the  great  republic  he  resolved  to  survey 
its  principal  sights  by  visiting  the  falls  of  Niagara 
and  Mr.  Washington  Irving.  Once,  as  he  drove 
through  Brooklyn,  he  took  the  salute  from  the  mili- 
tary. No  self-respecting  foreigner  can  spend  a  month 
in  New  York  without  solving  the  problem  of  the 
United  States,  and  Prince  Louis  recorded  his  im- 
pressions with  due  solemnity: 

'Un  mineur  qui  se  declare  independant  a  seize  ans, 
quelle  que  soit  sa  force  physique,  n'est  qu'un  enfant.  Les 
£tats-Unis  se  sont  cms  nation  des  qu'ils  ont  en  une  adminis- 
tration. .  .  .  Us  n'etaient  et  ne  sont  encore  qu'une  colonie 
independante.' 


96  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

It  was,  in  spite  of  an  intelligent  prevision  of  the 
slavery  contest,  a  fatal  illusion  for  a  man  who  was 
one  day  to  encounter  American  policy.  The  Prince 
never  recovered  from  the  hallucination  that  he  under- 
stood the  United  States,  and  it  was  not  until  thirty 
years  later,  when  he  had  sent  Maximilian  to  Mexico, 
that  he  learnt  his  error. 

But  his  investigations  were  suddenly  interrupted 
by  the  mail.  One  evening  in  June,  as  he  was  driving 
with  a  clergyman  in  New  York,  he  opened  a  letter 
from  his  mother.  It  was  a  brave  letter  announcing 
an  operation,  but  on  the  outside  a  doctor  had  scrawled 
'Venez!  venez!'  Louis  was  a  good  son :  his  American 
plans  were  abandoned  at  once,  and  he  booked  a 
passage  in  the  sailing  packet  for  Liverpool.  Before 
it  sailed  he  conveyed,  with  the  courtesy  of  a  crowned 
head,  his  apologies  to  Mr.  Martin  Van  Buren  for  his 
omission  to  visit  him  at  the  White  House,  to  which 
the  President  had  omitted  to  invite  him.  The  voyage 
of  the  George  Washington  was  uneventful  in  spite 
of  the  presence  on  board  of  two  English  actors  and 
one  of  the  few  men  whom  Prince  Louis  could  beat  at 
chess,  and  he  landed  at  Liverpool  in  July  with  a 
desperate  hope  that  the  French  embassy  in  London 
would  give  him  a  passport  for  the  journey  across 
France  to  Arenenberg.  It  was  refused;  and  at  the 
end  of  the  month,  when  the  crowds  in  the  London 
streets  were  respectfully  cheering  the  young  Queen, 
he  left  the  Thames  in  a  Dutch  boat  with  a  borrowed 
American  passport.  Hortense  was  slowly  dying  on  a 
couch  in  her  garden,  as  her  son  drearily  worked  his 
way  up  the  Rhine  from  Rotterdam  to  the  Swiss 
frontier.  When  he  came  to  Arenenberg,  she  was 
asleep  and  they  would  not  let  him  see  her.  But  on 


THE  PRINCE  97 

the  next  morning  (it  was  an  August  day  on  the  lake 
outside)  he  came  to  her  bedside.  Seeing  her  son 
again,  she  lingered  into  the  autumn.  It  was  her 
belief  that  they  would  meet  once  more  and  for  ever; 
when  he  was  in  America  she  had  written  to  him: 
'Bien  sur  on  se  retrouve:  crois  a  cette  douce  idee: 
elle  est  trop  necessaire  pour  ne  pas  etre  vraie/  And 
in  that  belief,  with  her  face  towards  her  son,  Hortense 
died  on  an  October  morning  in  the  year  1837.  She 
had  lived  too  long  without  happiness  to  regret  life; 
but  she  had  given  much  pleasure  in  the  world,  and 
she  had  made  an  Emperor  of  the  French. 


IX 

HORTENSE  was  dead,  and  between  the  dripping  trees 
of  Arenenberg  the  long  avenue  of  exile  without  her 
to  share  it  opened  before  Prince  Louis.  But  he  could 
not  face  the  empty  house,  and  within  a  few  months 
he  moved  round  the  Lake  of  Constance  to  another 
chateau  of  Gottlieben.  A  quiet  winter  which  he 
passed  with  a  few  of  the  acquitted  prisoners  of  Stras- 
burg  raised  the  suspicions  of  the  French  government, 
and  it  was  resolved  in  Paris  to  remove  this  danger 
from  the  eastern  frontier.  Early  in  1838  the  French 
minister  at  Berne  made  a  semi-official  suggestion  that 
the  Prince  should  be  expelled  from  Switzerland. 
But  the  proposal,  which  by  a  pleasing  irony  came 
from  a  son  of  Marshal  Lannes,  was  received  without 
enthusiasm  and  referred  by  the  Federal  government  to 
the  Canton  of  Thurgau.  The  Canton  declined  and 
emphasised  its  refusal  by  electing  the  Prince  to  the 
local  council  and  the  presidency  of  its  shooting  club, 
whilst  the  exile  was  intensely  gratified  by  the  publicity 
which  he  owed  to  the  French  demarche  and  struck 
heroic  attitudes  before  Swiss  audiences. 

Bonapartism  was  taken  more  seriously  at  the 
Tuileries  than  elsewhere  in  France,  and  at  this  stage 
the  French  government  was  still  further  alarmed  by 
the  publication  in  Paris  of  an  account  written  by  one 
of  the  conspirators  of  the  attempt  on  Strasburg.  A 
wise  policy  had  dictated  the  endeavour,  which  had 

98 


THE  PRINCE  99 

been  almost  completely  successful,  to  ignore  the 
pretender  and  to  ridicule  the  entire  affair.  But  it 
was  now  feared  that  a  serious  narrative  might  show 
it  in  a  graver  light,  and  the  pamphlet  received  the 
incomparable  advertisement  of  suppression.  Pub- 
licity and  martyrdom  are  the  two  essentials  of  suc- 
cessful agitation,  and  by  the  new  policy  of  the  French 
government  both  these  stimulants  were  generously 
administered  to  the  Bonapartist  cause.  The  author 
of  the  book,  Lieutenant  Laity,  was  arrested  and 
brought  before  the  Peers  on  a  charge  of  treason.  The 
prosecution  condescended  to  plead  the  claims  of  the 
Orleans  monarchy  and  afforded  to  Laity  an  admirable 
opportunity  to  expound  the  superior  political  virtues 
of  Prince  Louis.  But  the  Peers  of  France  were  not 
a  Strasburg  jury,  and  with  an  egregious  lack  of  pro- 
portion they  sentenced  to  five  years'  imprisonment 
and  a  fine  of  10,000  francs  the  historian  of  an  unsuc- 
cessful conspiracy  whose  actual  participants  had  been 
uniformly  acquitted.  The  gravity  of  the  sentence 
won  sympathy  for  the  unfortunate  pamphleteer,  and 
no  jury  of  Bonapartists  could  have  done  better  work 
for  his  cause.  Before  the  trial  the  Prince  had  written 
to  Laity  that  there  was  no  Bonapartist  party,  only 
a  Bonapartist  state  of  mind.  But  after  it  no  French- 
man could  doubt  that  a  movement  which  had  startled 
the  Government  into  vindictiveness  and  the  Peers 
into  brutality  was  a  serious  competitor  with  the  reign- 
ing dynasty. 

This  impression  was  deepened  by  the  wholly  dis- 
proportionate anxiety  with  which  the  Government 
pursued  the  trivial  question  of  the  Prince's  place  of 
residence.  The  French  minister  at  Berne  returned 
to  this  topic  in  a  Note  of  portentous  solemnity;  and 


100 

the  Swiss,  who  resented  this  interference  with  their 
traditional  (and  not  unprofitable)  right  of  giving 
sanctuary  to  foreigners,  entered  with  gusto  upon  the 
happy  round  of  circumlocution  for  which  a  federal 
constitution  affords  such  unrivalled  opportunities.  It 
was  debated  in  the  Diet;  the  debate  was  adjourned; 
the  Note  was  referred  to  the  Canton  immediately  con- 
cerned; the  legal  talent  of  Switzerland  was  mobilised 
to  advise  on  nice  points  as  to  the  Prince's  national 
status;  the  Prince  wrote  letters  full  of  grave  elo- 
quence ;  the  French  minister  read  Notes  full  of  vague 
menace ;  and  the  world  at  large  was  made  to  appreciate 
to  a  degree  beyond  the  wildest  dreams  of  Bonapartist 
propagandists  that  there  was  in  existence  a  living 
heir  of  the  First  Empire.  The  summer  passed  away 
in  these  fascinating  exercises.  Meanwhile  the  French 
government  lost  patience  and  paid  the  Prince  the 
supreme  compliment  of  a  mobilisation  in  his  private 
honour.  An  army  corps  was  concentrated  at  Lyons 
to  operate  against  the  Swiss  frontier;  and  Louis, 
whose  resemblance  to  William  Tell  had  never  been 
marked,  became  a  national  hero.  Cantons  rained 
republican  honours  on  him,  patriotic  guerrilleros  were 
recruited  in  Lucerne,  and  the  excitement  rose  to  a 
crescendo.  Then,  having  sufficiently  apprised  the 
world  of  his  existence,  the  Prince  gave  a  regal  display 
of  his  magnanimity  and  withdrew  to  England  with  a 
graceful  gesture.  The  aimless  fatuity  of  his  persecu- 
tion had  assured  his  position  on  the  European  stage, 
and  in  October  the  silent  young  man  who  had  crept 
back  into  Switzerland  as  an  obscure  failure  took  the 
road  again  between  cheering  crowds  as  a  figure  of 
international  importance. 

He  arrived  in  London  in  the  late  autumn  of  1838. 


THE  PRINCE  101 

It  was  four  months  after  the  coronation  of  Queen 
Victoria,  and  society  before  the  pervasion  of  railways 
and  the  Prince  Consort  was  faintly  reminiscent  of 
the  Regency.  The  age  of  Count  D'Orsay  and  Lady 
Blessington  was  an  echo  of  the  great  days  of  Mr. 
Brummell,  an  odd  survival  of  the  allied  elegances 
of  dress  and  duelling  into  the  gathering  gloom  of 
the  Nineteenth  Century.  There  was  a  compact  little 
world  of  wits  and  beauties,  where  Mr.  Greville  kept 
his  wicked  diary  and  ladies  shook  their  curls  at  gentle- 
men in  stars  and  ribands.  The  long  shadow  of  Prince 
Albert  had  not  yet  fallen  across  the  bright  Victorian 
scene,  and  under  the  urbane  consulate  of  Lord  Mel- 
bourne the  young  Queen  rode  out  daily  with  her 
Court.  It  was  the  modish  period  of  the  Books  of 
Beauty ;  and  when  Prince  Louis  Napoleon  came  upon 
the  town,  his  career  was  an  exercise  in  Disraelian 
bon  ton.  . 

He  made  a  quiet  entrance  at  his  old  hotel  in  St. 
James's  Street.  But  after  a  migration  to  a  second 
hotel  in  Waterloo  Place,  he  was  soon  more  magnifi- 
cently established  in  a  peer's  house  which  he  took  in 
Carlton  Terrace,  and  the  imagination  of  Mr.  Disraeli, 
always  so  inflammable  by  royalty,  was  kindled  by 
the  Prince's  reception  in  London  society.  His  horses 
became  familiar  in  the  Park,  and  the  world  learned  to 
look  for  the  quiet  young  man  who  drove  to  the  opera 
with  his  equerries  and  had  the  Imperial  eagle  painted 
on  his  carriage  doors.  His  suite  included  the  ubiqui- 
tous Persigny  and  the  more  impressive  figures  of 
Colonels  Vaudrey  and  Parquin ;  and  he  was  sometimes 
attended  by  General  Montholon,  the  authentic  Mont- 
holon  of  St.  Helena,  author  of  the  latest  and  least 
reliable  of  the  Napoleonic  gospels,  or  by  the  more 


102  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

questionable  presence  of  Colonel  Bouffet  de  Montau- 
ban,  who  had  varied  his  retirement  with  service  in  the 
Colombian  army  and  the  management  of  a  soap  works 
at  Richmond. 

Part  of  his  first  winter  was  spent  in  instructive 
travel.  After  exhausting  the  attractions  of  the  Bank 
of  England  and  the  Lord  Mayor's  Show,  the  Prince 
visited  the  spa  of  Leamington  and  the  more  forbidding 
centres  of  the  industrial  North.  He  succumbed  at 
Manchester  to  the  delights  of  an  Industrial  Exhibition 
in  the  Mechanics'  Institute,  and  the  managers  of 
provincial  theatres  proudly  displayed  him  to  cheering 
audiences  in  decorated  boxes.  When  he  returned  to 
London  the  great  house  was  opened,  and  half  a 
century  later  Endymion  remembered  his  entertain^ 
ments.  'The  appointments  were  finished  and  the 
cuisine  refined.  There  was  a  dinner  twice  a  week  .  .  . 
to  which  Endymion,  whom  the  prince  always  treated 
with  kindness,  had  a  general  invitation.  When  he 
occasionally  dined  there  he  met  always  several  foreign 
guests,  and  all  men  apparently  of  mark — at  any  rate 
all  distinguished  by  their  intelligence.  It  was  an 
interesting  and  useful  house  for  a  young  man,  and 
especially  a  young  politician  to  frequent.'  Since 
society  was  mildly  interested  to  meet  the  celebrated 
pretender  who  had  given  Louis  Philippe  such  a  scare, 
he  was  well  received  and  was  much  seen  at  Lady 
Blessington's.  The  French  government  followed  his 
progress  with  an  anxious  eye  and  requested  Lord 
Melbourne  to  exclude  the  Prince  from  London.  But 
the  Prime  Minister,  who  was  rarely  at  a  loss  to  find 
excuses  for  inaction,  blandly  explained  the  unfortu- 
nate state  of  the  law;  and  Prince  Louis  continued  to 
go  the  round  of  the  clubs. 


THE  PRINCE  103 

The  world  found  him  a  romantic  figure,  and 
D'Orsay  (it  was  the  height  of  elegance)  made  a 
portrait  of  him.  He  escaped  by  a  few  months  the  acid 
etching  of  Mr.  Creevey.  But  when  Mr.  Greville  met 
him  at  a  party,  he  saw  'a  short  thickish  vulgar-looking 
man  without  the  slightest  resemblance  to  his  Imperial 
uncle  or  any  intelligence  in  his  countenance* ;  but  the 
old  gentleman  had  never  felt  at  home  at  Lady 
Blessington's,  and  the  injudicious  combination  on 
that  evening  of  Lord  Durham  with  Captain  Marryat, 
Alfred  de  Vigny,  and  Bulwer  Lytton  may  well  have 
disturbed  his  observation.  But  the  more  sympathetic 
Mr.  Disraeli  found  in  him  'that  calm  which  is  rather 
unusual  with  foreigners,  and  which  is  always  pleasing 
to  an  English  aristocrat.'  The  Prince  even  satisfied 
the  more  exacting  tests  of  tailoring;  and  the  member 
for  Maidstone,  who  matched  at  this  time  the  yellow 
of  his  waistcoats  with  the  bottle-green  of  his  trousers, 
declared  that  'his  dress  was  in  the  best  taste,  but  to 
a  practised  eye  had  something  of  a  foreign  cut.' 
There  could  be  no  higher  tribute  in  the  whole  length 
of  Savile  Row. 

But  the  Prince  was  not  satisfied  with  his  drawing- 
room  successes.  It  was  pleasant  to  walk  over  to 
Lord  Eglinton's  for  a  rubber  after  dinner.  It  was 
delightful  to  breakfast  with  Lytton  up  the  river,  even 
if  one  rowed  Persigny  and  Mr.  Disraeli  on  to  a  mud- 
bank  afterwards  and  endured  the  shrill  invective  of 
Mrs.  Disraeli  as  the  grounded  boat  rolled  in  the  wash 
of  the  passing  steamers.  But  Louis  Philippe  was 
still  King  of  the  French,  and  a  pretender  must  do 
something  more  for  his  name  than  explain  his  destiny 
to  dinner-tables.  Mysterious  gentlemen  flitted  up 
and  down  the  steps  of  Carlton  Terrace  (and  later  of 


104  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Carlton  Gardens)  with  the  preoccupied  air  by  which 
the  French  spies  in  the  street  learned  to  distinguish 
secret  agents.  Money  went  to  Paris  for  the  formation 
of  Bonapartist  clubs  and  the  foundation  of  that  de- 
pressing type  of  newspaper  which  derives  its  sole 
revenue  from  the  proprietor.  Behind  the  respectable 
fa£ade  of  his  social  position  the  Prince  was  busy  with 
his  dynastic  ambitions,  and  in  the  summer  of  1839  he 
produced  a  fresh  statement  of  Bonapartist  doctrine. 
Des  Idees  Napoleoniennes  was  issued  in  London 
by  Mr.  Disraeli's  publishers.  But  its  real  public 
was  in  France,  and  a  cheap  edition  was  printed  in 
Paris  at  half  a  franc,  bound  in  the  green  of  the 
Empire  and  bearing  on  its  cover  the  Emperor's 
eagle. 

The  book,  which  was  a  more  ambitious  affair  than 
its  predecessors,  followed  the  familiar  lines.  The 
more  obtrusive  facts  of  Napoleonic  policy,  which  had 
been  largely  due  to  the  Emperor's  lamentable  ignor- 
ance of  Bonapartism,  were  relegated  to  a  secondary 
place,  and  Napoleon  was  revealed  by  his  nephew  as 
a  social  reformer  distracted  from  his  benefactions  by 
a  fortuitous  connection  with  the  Grand  Armee.  The 
revelation  was  in  the  direct  tradition  of  St.  Helena, 
and  it  was  made  with  a  creditable  command  of  elo- 
quence. The  author  professed  to  be  free  from  all 
party  ties  and,  like  most  adversaries  of  party,  praised 
his  own.  The  sound  revolutionary  pedigree  of 
Napoleon  was  carefully  established:  he  was  the 
'Messie  des  idees  nouvellesf  the  executor  (not  the 
executioner)  of  the  Revolution,  whose  monarchy  was 
the  fullest  expression  of  the  First  Republic.  His 
absolutism  was  an  accident  of  the  European  war, 
forced  on  a  blushing  Emperor  by  an  impetuous  pub- 


THE  PRINCE  105 

lie  opinion.  But  he  was  a  democrat  at  heart,  and  in 
the  intervals  between  his  victories  he  had  reconstructed 
France  on  a  basis  of  equality.  The  codes,  the  colleges, 
the  conscription  were  all  founded  on  the  broad  base 
of  democracy,  eun  colosse  pyramidal  a  bas  et  a  tete 
haute/  It  would  all  have  become  obvious  after  a 
victory  at  Waterloo:  'Sous  le  rapport  politique, 
I'Empereur  na  pu  organiser  la  France  que  pro- 
visoirement;  mais  toutes  ses  institutions  renfermaient 
un  germe  de  perfectionnement  qua  la  paix  il  eut 
developpe/  The  bright  prospect  closed  at  Water- 
loo, but  it  might  reopen  under  a  Second  Em- 
pire. 

In  Europe,  it  seemed,  Napoleon  had  been  still 
more  anxious  to  make  a  better  world.  His  Italian 
Kingdom  had  been  the  rough  sketch  of  a  free  Italy: 
cLe  nom  si  beau  d'ltalie,  mort  depuis  tant  de  siecles, 
est  rendu  a  des  provinces  jusquas-la  detachees;  il 
renferme  en  lui  seul  tout  un  avenir  d'independance* 
German  unity  and  Polish  independence  were  vaguely 
foreshadowed  in  the  Emperor's  manipulations  of  the 
European  state-system,  and  his  whole  creation  moved 
towards  the  confederation  of  Europe,  with  a  code 
of  European  laws  administered  by  a  European  court 
of  justice,  in  a  single  league  of  free  nations,  'la  sainte 
alliance  des  peuples/  in  which  war  would  survive  only 
as  a  crime  and  mankind  would  at  last  set  up  its 
eternal  rest.  It  was  a  remarkable  design  which  had 
more  influence  upon  the  imagination  of  Prince  Louis 
than  upon  any  of  his  contemporaries ;  and  he  left  his 
readers  with  a  vague  gesture  towards  world  peace  and 
a  more  detailed  recitation  of  the  virtues  of  a  popular 
monarchy.  The  Napoleonic  idea,  as  the  Prince  ex- 
pounded it,  was  fune  idee  sociale,  industrielle,  com- 


106  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

merciale,  humanitaire/  promising  to  France  'a  trovers 
la  gloire  des  armes  une  gloire  civile  plus  grande  et 
plus  durable' 

'  This  adroit  and  intelligent  piece  of  propaganda  had 
an  immediate  success.  But  while  it  was  running 
through  its  editions  in  Paris,  Prince  Louis  was  less 
usefully  employed  in  Ayrshire.  Lord  Eglinton  held 
a  tournament  at  his  house  in  Scotland  which  lived 
for  a  generation  in  the  memories  of  British  humour- 
ists. It  was  to  be  a  costume  affair,  and  mediaeval 
costume  was  supremely  ridiculous  to  a  generation 
which  wore  rectangular  hats  and  strapped  its  trousers 
under  its  boots.  Even  Mr.  Disraeli,  so  tolerant  of 
sartorial  eccentricities,  was  still  laughing  forty  years 
later  at  'the  Knights  of  the  Griffin,  and  the  Dragon, 
and  the  Black  Lion  and  the  Golden  Lion,  and  the 
Dolphin  and  the  Stag's  Head,  and  they  were  all 
always  scrupulously  addressed  by  their  chivalric 
names,  instead  of  by  the  Tommys  and  the  Jemmys 
that  circulated  in  the  affectionate  circle  of  White's, 
or  the  Gusseys  and  the  Regys  of  Belgravian  tea- 
parties.'  It  was  all  vastly  entertaining,  and  the  Prince 
went  up  to  Scotland  to  play  a  leading  part  in  the 
pageant.  He  proposed  to  appear  in  the  lists  in  a 
dazzling  combination  of  bright  steel  and  crimson 
satin,  with  a  somewhat  ill-advised  creation  of  green 
velvet  for  evening  wear.  His  horsemanship,  which 
was  excellent,  would  have  made  him  a  more  formid- 
able pretender  to  the  throne  of  England,  where 
such  accomplishments  are  highly  valued;  and  with 
Persigny  as  his  faithful  squire,  he  figured  prominently 
in  the  jousting.  The  first  day  of  the  Tournament  was 
held  in  pouring  rain,  and  the  knights  adjourned  to 
the  ball-room,  where  Prince  Louis  tilted  on  foot.  He 


THE  PRINCE  107 

was  at  home  in  the  air  of  chivalry,  since  he  was  him- 
self the  author  of  a  ballad  in  which 

'Brightly  each  targe  and  burgonet 
Was  glancing  in  the  sun,' 

and  a  number  of  knights  displayed  a  laudable  re- 
collection of  the  works  of  Sir  Walter  Scott.  His 
remaining  poetical  works  in  English  might  have 
appeared  without  attracting  attention  in  any  Book 
of  Beauty  or  Landscape  Annual  to  which  Mrs. 
Hemans  contributed.  They  included  a  thoughtful 
elegy  by  Napoleon  on 

'My  dearest  thought — my  darling  Son — 
My  beautiful  Napoleon,' 

in  which  the  Emperor's  reflections  were  pitched  in  a 
tone  of  melancholy  platitude  and  literary  reminis- 
cence more  usually  associated  with  prize  composi- 
tions. The  French  armies  pass  across  the  stage 

Tearless  as  lions  when  they  haste 
Athwart  the  long  Numidian  waste,' 

and  their  master  soliloquises  to  an  extent  which  is 
fatally  facilitated  by  the  simplicity  of  the  metre: 

'Farewell!  ambition — lofty  schemes — 
Heroic  deeds — and  daring  dreams ! 
Farewell !  the  field  of  death  and  doom — 
The  pealing  gun — and  waving  plume!' 

There  is  also  a  Byronic  set  of  Stanzas  to  Ireland  of 
which  the  sentiment  must  have  been  more  pleasing 
to  Mr.  Moore  than  the  poetry. 

In  the  autumn,  when  the  polite  world  was  reopen- 


108  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

ing  its  doors  in  London,  the  Prince  resumed  his  life 
in  Carlton  Terrace.  Mr.  Greville  met  him  again  at 
Lady  Blessington's  and  he  found  himself  engaged  in 
an  unpleasant  dispute  with  a  Mr,  Kinglake  for  the 
wandering  affections  of  a  blonde  lady  whom  he  had 
met  at  Gore  House.  The  Prince  was  successful,  as 
princes  generally  are;  and  Miss  Howard  became  his 
unconsecrated  consort  for  a  long  term  of  years.  But 
Mr.  Kinglake  bore  malice  and  lived  to  demonstrate 
by  his  subsequent  depiction  of  the  Emperor  of  the 
French  the  unwisdom  of  exasperating  a  historian. 
Early  in  1840  the  Prince  resumed  his  politics,  and 
Persigny  published  in  the  Lettres  de  Londres  an  in- 
spiring picture  of  the  pretender  as  the  hope  of  his 
country,  in  which  his  views  were  fairly  represented 
and  his  appearance  considerably  improved.  He  ap- 
pears as  the  living  image  of  the  Emperor,  fle  meme 
nez  OLUX  belles  proportions  et  les  memes  yeux  gris'\ 
and  an  elaborate  game  of  historical  parallel  is  played 
between  Prince  Louis  and  Octavius,  Caesar's  nephew. 
Meanwhile  he  was  going  quietly  about  the  West 
End  with  his  vague  eye  and  his  black  stock.  Politi- 
cians professed  themselves  impressed  by  his  reserve, 
and  the  great  world  was  interested  to  make  the  dis- 
covery of  a  foreigner  who  could  be  a  sportsman.  The 
unwearying  Doyle  made  a  drawing  of  him  on  horse- 
back, which  was  to  be  seen  among  the  'Equestrian 
Sketches'  in  McLean's  window  in  the  Haymarket. 
At  one  moment  the  public  esteem  of  him  was  almost 
heightened  by  his  appearance  as  a  duellist.  An 
unpleasant  person  named  Leon  developed  a  sudden 
repugnance  for  the  Bonaparte  family  (although  he 
subsequently  so  far  overcame  it  as  to  live  in  official 
charity  under  the  Second  Empire),  and  the  Prince 


THE  PRINCE  109 

found  himself  challenged  and  standing  on  Wimbledon 
Common  with  the  exquisite  D'Orsay  for  his  second. 
But  it  was  three  weeks  after  the  marriage  of  Queen 
Victoria  to  her  Consort,  and  the  light  had  died  out 
of  English  life ;  the  police  intervened,  and  the  intend- 
ing duellists  were  bound  over  at  Bow  Street.  It  was 
time  for  the  Prince  to  return  to  a  larger,  a  less  confined 
activity.  He  had  made  himself  known  to  the  world 
as  the  heir  of  the  Empire,  and  he  could  write  proudly : 
'Tons  les  Bonaparte  etaient  morts.  Eh  loien,  j'ai 
rattache  le  fil.' 


FRENCH  opinion  in  1840  was  not  unprepared  for  a 
return  of  Bonapartism  in  a  militant  form.  A  genera- 
tion whose  fathers  had  marched  across  Europe  as 
conquerors  felt  vaguely  humiliated  by  the  continu- 
ance of  peace,  and  there  was  little  in  the  sober 
spectacle  provided  by  the  existing  dynasty  to  appeal 
to  the  French  imagination.  An  elderly  king,  a 
devoted  royal  family,  and  a  succession  of  Liberal 
ministers  formed  an  inadequate  substitute  for  the 
rolling  drums  and  the  Man  of  Destiny ;  and  it  became 
steadily  more  difficult  for  a  Government  that  was  so 
eminently  Victorian  to  control  a  people  which  was 
preponderantly  Romantic.  France  under  Louis 
Philippe  was  haunted  by  the  little  figure  of  the  Em- 
peror; one  could  catch  on  every  wind  the  echo  of  old 
names,  and  men  turned  to  the  crude  memories  of  the 
Empire  for  an  escape  into  romance. 

It  was  four  years  since  Prince  Louis'  first  experi- 
ment in  pretendership  at  Strasburg,  and  the  Orleanist 
government  had  unintentionally  employed  the  interval 
in  advertising  his  cause  with  a  thoroughness  which 
might  more  usefully  have  been  reserved  for  the 
advertisement  of  its  own  virtues.  The  shrewd  policy 
which  had  cynically  denied  him  the  publicity  of  a  state 
trial  in  1836  was  forgotten  in  a  new  temper  of  irritable 
vindictiveness,  and  the  Bonapartist  cause  derived 

no 


THE  PRINCE  111 

more  benefit  from  the  ponderous  victimisation  of 
Lieutenant  Laity  and  the  aimless  persecution  of  the 
exiled  Prince  than  it  had  ever  drawn  from  the  apo- 
calyptic fervour  of  Persigny.  France  and  Europe 
were  made  aware  by  the  ministers  of  Louis  Philippe 
that  Napoleon  had  left  a  nephew,  and  the  world 
inferred  from  their  obvious  anxiety  that  he  was  a 
formidable  person. 

His  own  propaganda  was  vigorously  sustained,  but 
for  effectiveness  it  bore  no  comparison  with  the  fatuity 
of  the  French  government.  His  emergence  from  the 
obscurity  of  Switzerland  into  the  brighter  light  of 
London  society,  which  he  owed  entirely  to  M.  Mole 
and  his  minister  at  Berne,  was  an  object  of  mild  inter- 
est in  France;  and  when  he  stated  his  political  faith 
in  the  intermittent  perorations  of  the  Idees  Napoleon- 
iennes  he  was  regarded  with  increasing  attention  by 
a  widening  circle.  His  claims  were  pressed  on  the 
attention  of  Paris  by  the  baroque  eloquence  of  two 
newspapers,  whose  expenses  exceeded  their  revenue 
in  spite  of  the  attractive  circumstances  that  one  of 
them  was  edited  by  a  claimant  to  the  throne  of 
Hungary ;  and  there  was  a  steady  flow  of  pamphlets. 
True  believers  were  offered  opportunities  of  congenial 
society  in  Bonapartist  clubs,  two  of  which  were  formed 
in  Paris.  One  was  a  genteel  receptacle  for  retired 
officers,  whilst  the  other  was  commended  to  public 
favour  by  the  more  enlivening  company  of  the  con- 
tralto of  Strasburg. 

But  the  verbiage  of  the  Capitole  and  the  enter- 
tainments of  the  Club  des  Cotillons  were  of  less  service 
to  the  Prince  than  the  slow  drift  of  French  opinion 
towards  the  Napoleonic  legend.  The  national  taste 
for  drum  and  trumpet  history  was  vaguely  thwarted 


112  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

by  a  king  who  carried  an  umbrella ;  and  his  drab  com- 
bination of  a  judicious  foreign  policy  with  the  family 
virtues,  which  might  have  captivated  an  Anglo-Saxon 
electorate,  fell  bitterly  short  of  the  more  picturesque 
requirements  of  the  French.  His  appearance  was 
irredeemably  uninspiring,  and  his  public  utterances 
provoked  M.  Thiers  to  the  conjecture  that  his  mon- 
arch's morning  prayer  was  'Give  us,  O  Lord,  our 
daily  platitude.'  His  ingenious  and  unheroic  adjust- 
ments of  European  affairs  were  resented  as  a  national 
humiliation ;  and  when  it  transpired  that  his  Egyptian 
policy  was  breaking  down,  the  country  was  thrown 
into  a  wholly  disproportionate  paroxysm  of  indigna- 
tion. The  French  imagination  had  played  round  the 
Eastern  Mediterranean  for  almost  a  century,  and 
these  vague  ambitions  had  been  incorporated  in  the 
Napoleonic  tradition  by  the  operations  of  General 
Bonaparte  and  his  Regiment  des  Dromadaires  in 
1798.  The  Napoleonic  atmosphere  was  heightened  by 
the  career  of  the  Pasha  of  Egypt.  Born  by  a  pleasing 
coincidence  in  the  year  of  the  Emperor's  birth, 
Mehemet  Ali  began  life  in  the  tobacco  trade  but  soon 
found  a  more  congenial  occupation  in  the  Bashi- 
Bazouks.  The  simple-minded  blend  of  homicide  and 
intrigue  by  which  he  rose  to  power  inspired  French 
observers  to  a  flattering  comparison  with  Napoleon, 
and  it  became  an  article  of  patriotic  faith  that  in  the 
intermittent  warfare  between  Egypt  and  Turkey  the 
Pasha  deserved  every  encouragement.  His  armies 
were  moving  slowly  up  into  Asia  Minor,  and  at  Nisib 
on  the  upper  Euphrates  they  met  and  broke  a  Turkish 
force  whose  operations  were  conducted  in  strict  con- 
formity with  the  views  of  the  accompanying  judicial 
and  religious  authorities  and  in  defiance  of  the  more 


THE  PRINCE  113 

exacting  requirements  of  a  Captain  Helmuth  von 
Moltke.  This  young  officer,  who  was  not  yet  under 
the  necessity  of  confronting  the  world  with  a  wig  of 
transparent  artificiality,  was  attached  to  Turkish 
headquarters  and  succeeded  by  hard  riding  in  escaping 
from  the  rout  into  European  history.  The  Egyptian 
victory  startled  the  world,  and  it  was  resolved  in 
London  to  check  Mehemet's  too  Napoleonic  career. 
This  initiative  was  fiercely  resented  in  France,  and 
M.  Thiers  struck  heroic  attitudes  before  enthusiastic 
audiences.  But  his  protest  was  overborne,  and  the 
humiliation  left  French  opinion  in  a  state  of  acute 
self -consciousness. 

The  government  of  Louis  Philippe  regarded  its 
high-spirited  young  charges  with  the  anxious  eye 
of  an  elderly  nurse  and  decided  to  distract  their 
thoughts  from  the  inadequacy  of  the  present  by  an- 
other of  their  favourite  stories  about'Napoleon.  The 
fractious  public  already  had  an  armful  of  Napoleonic 
toys  and  picture-books.  The  Arc  de  Triomphe  looked 
down  the  Champ  £lysees,  an  army  of  historical 
painters  had  converted  Versailles  into  a  gallery  of 
Napoleonic  pictures,  and  there  was  a  statue  of  the 
Emperor  on  the  Vendome  column.  But  it  was  now 
decided  that  Paris  should  have  the  Emperor  himself. 
Early  in  1840  M.  Guizot,  who  had  achieved  a  Euro- 
pean reputation  as  an  English  historian  without  ever 
visiting  England,  was  appointed  ambassador  in  Lon- 
don in  the  mistaken  belief  that  relations  with  Lord 
Palmerston  would  be  facilitated  by  a  thorough  grasp 
of  the  constitutional  struggles  of  the  last  century  but 
one;  and  within  a  few  months  of  his  appointment 
he  applied  for  the  surrender  of  Napoleon's  body  to  the 
French  nation.  This  somewhat  emotional  application 


114  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

was  granted  by  the  sardonic  Foreign  Secretary,  and  in 
July  a  French  cruiser  commanded  by  a  royal  prince 
sailed  for  St.  Helena.  The  challenge  to  a  Bonaparte 
pretender  was  obvious.  The  political  funeral  has 
always  been  a  favourite  vehicle  of  French  propaganda, 
and  it  seemed  almost  indecent  that  the  Orleanist 
monarchy  should  be  permitted  to  monopolise  so 
Bonapartist  an  occasion  as  the  second  funeral  of 
Napoleon.  If  the  Emperor's  body  was  to  return  to 
Paris,  the  Emperor's  nephew  should  be  there  to  re- 
ceive it ;  and  Prince  Louis  resolved  to  make  a  second 
attempt  on  the  throne  of  France  before  the  frigate 
Belle-Poule  could  anchor  at  Havre. 

His  project  at  first  took  the  romantic  form  of  a 
piratical  attack  to  be  made  on  the  French  cruiser  at 
sea  on  its  long  voyage  from  St.  Helena  to  the  English 
Channel.  But  the  attractive  design  of  hoisting  a 
Bonapartist  Jolly  Roger  in  the  South  Atlantic  was 
abandoned,  and  it  was  decided  to  attempt  a  military 
revolution  in  Fance  on  the  lines  which  had  so  nearly 
succeeded  at  Strasburg.  Lille  was  selected  as  a  suit- 
able garrison  town,  lying  close  to  the  Belgian  frontier 
and  commanded  by  an  officer  who  had  risen  from 
the  ranks  under  the  First  Empire.  The  Prince's 
agents  began  to  appear  at  the  officers'  club,  and  one 
of  the  conspirators  of  Strasburg  was  seen  walking  on 
the  fortifications.  The  genial  Parquin  arrived  on  the 
scene,  and  a  retired  staff  officer,  who  had  been  con- 
verted to  Bonapartism  by  the  Prince's  prompt 
condolence  upon  his  retirement,  secured  an  invitation 
to  dine  with  the  commander  of  the  garrison.  As  the 
guests  on  this  occasion  included  the  royal  Prefet,  the 
circumstances  were  hardly  favourable  to  an  attempt 
to  enlist  his  host  in  a  Bonapartist  conspiracy.  But  in 


THE  PRINCE  115 

the  course  of  a  call  which  he  paid  after  this  entertain- 
ment, he  conveyed  to  the  General  a  somewhat  crude 
off er  from  the  Prince  of  400,000  francs  if  the  attempt 
succeeded.  The  simple  soldier  steered  a  cautious 
course  by  declining  to  join  the  conspiracy  but  omitting 
to  arrest  the  Prince's  agent.  But  his  refusal  to  co- 
operate determined  the  conspirators  to  transfer  their 
activities  from  Lille,  and  in  its  final  phase  the  con- 
spiracy centred  on  Boulogne. 

The  selection  of  a  seaport  presented  obvious 
advantages  to  an  expedition  which  was  bound  to  start 
from  England.  The  garrison  was  small,  and  great 
hopes  were  built  on  the  sympathy  of  a  subaltern 
named  Aladenize,  part  of  whose  regiment  was  sta- 
toined  at  Boulogne,  The  plan  was  simple :  the  Prince 
was  to  appear  in  the  town  with  a  strong  party  in  the 
uniform  of  the  infantry  battalion  which  was  stationed 
at  Calais,  and  it  was  hoped  that  the  'Napoleonic  ap- 
peal, heightened  by  this  illusion  of  initial  success, 
would  secure  the  42nd  of  the  Line  and  the  port  of 
Boulogne.  During  the  summer  mysterious  bales  of 
second-hand  French  uniforms  arrived  at  Carlton 
Gardens,  and  button-makers  in  St.  Martin's  Lane 
were  bewildered  by  orders  for  military  buttons  of 
outlandish  foreign  patterns.  Muskets  were  ordered 
from  Birmingham,  and  Dr.  Conneau,  who  had 
attached  himself  to  the  Prince  after  attending  his 
mother,  divided  his  time  between  sewing  buttons  on 
the  uniforms  and  printing  Imperial  proclamations 
on  a  hand-press  in  a  locked  room.  The  Prince's  style 
had  crystallised  slightly  since  the  manifestoes  of 
Strasburg,  and  his  staccato  appeals  to  the  army  and 
the  people  of  Boulogne  and  France  had  the  authentic 
Napoleonic  ring: 


116  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

'Soldats! 

La  France  est  faite  pour  commander  et  elle  obeit.  Vous 
etes  I'elite  du  peuple  et  on  vous  traite  comme  un  vil 
troupeau.  Vous  avez  recherche  ce  qu'etaient  devenues  lea 
aigles  d'Arcole,  d'Austerlitz,  d'lena.  Ces  aigles,  les  voila! 
Je  vous  les  rapporte.' 

The  customary  references  to  la  grande  ombre  de 
I'empereur  Napoleon'  and  (le  martyr  de  Sainte- 
Helene'  were  salted  with  lively  denunciations  of  the 
competing  dynasty,  whose  reign  was  dismissed  as  'dix 
ans  de  mensonge,  ^'usurpation  et  d'ignominie'  whilst 
its  pretended  respect  for  the  memory  of  the  Emperor 
was  stigmatised  as  'hypocrites  et  impures  hommages' 
Promotion  was  promised  to  all  classes  and  Europe 
was  reassured  as  to  the  Prince's  peaceful  intentions. 
There  was  also  a  curt  decree  in  the  name  of  the  French 
people  declaring,  in  the  true  Imperial  style :  'la  dynas- 
tie  des  Bourbons  d' Orleans  a  cesse  de  regner'  M. 
Thiers,  who  had  not  been  consulted,  was  graciously 
appointed  President  of  a  Provisional  Government, 
and  the  Prince,  who  abstained  from  proclaiming  him- 
self Emperor  before  a  decision  of  the  people  had  been 
obtained,  promised  to  summon  a  National  Assembly 
on  his  arrival  in  Paris. 

This  happy  transformation  was  to  be  effected  by 
Prince  Louis  and  fifty-five  other  persons,  mostly 
armed  with  muskets.  The  party  was  oddly  recruited 
for  the  adventure,  and  the  Prince  was  supported  in 
his  endeavour  to  impersonate  the  40th  of  the  Line  by 
a  company  consisting  largely  of  men-servants.  It 
was  the  need  for  numbers  rather  than  an  affectation 
of  royalty  that  led  him  to  take  his  chef,  his  butler,  his 
tailor,  and  his  fencing-master  to  Boulogne,  and  the 
rank  and  file  of  the  expedition  was  recruited  almost 


THE  PRINCE  117 

exclusively  from  below  stairs  at  Carlton  Gardens. 
General  Montholon,  who  had  ridden  through  the 
campaign  of  Waterloo  with  Napoleon  and  sat  with 
him  through  the  long  afternoons  at  St.  Helena,  lent 
a  flavour  of  the  First  Empire  to  the  enterprise,  and 
five  other  veterans  took  the  field  again.  Of  Prince 
Louis'  inner  circle,  Conneau  and  Persigny  went  on 
active  service,  and  five  of  the  heroes  of  Strasburg 
resumed  their  familiar  roles.  But  the  remainder  of 
the  company,  which  included  some  footmen,  an  Italian 
banker,  and  two  Poles,  was  of  strangely  miscellaneous 
origin. 

Early  in  July  a  foreign  gentleman  hired  a  paddle 
steamer  for  a  month,  and  the  Prince  mobilised  his 
forces.  Dining  at  Lady  Blessington's  for  the  last 
time  in  the  first  week  of  August  Prince  Louis,  who 
was  wearing  'a  large  spread  eagle  in  diamonds  clutch- 
ing a  thunderbolt  of  rubies,'  caused  a  mild  sensation 
by  inviting  the  company  to  dine  with  him  that  day 
twelvemonth  at  the  Tuileries,  whilst  an  indifferent 
stevedore  was  watching  men  at  the  Docks  load  the 
Edinburgh  Castle  with  a  remarkable  cargo  consisting 
principally  of  fancy  dress  and  refreshments.  In  addi- 
tion to  the  uniforms  and  two  dozen  cases  of  wine  and 
spirits,  two  carriages  and  nine  horses  were  slung  on 
board;  and  the  Bonapartist  Armada  was  complete. 
The  steamer  left  London  Bridge  on  an  August  morn- 
ing, as  M.  Guizot  was  proceeding  to  France  by  a 
more  regular  route;  and  before  it  left,  Colonel  Par- 
quin,  with  an  infelicitous  taste  in  mascots,  bought  a 
vulture  at  a  bird-fancier's  in  the  City.  The  Prince 
went  on  board  at  Gravesend,  and  as  the  Edinburgh 
Castle  dropped  down  the  river  to  the  Nore,  the  re- 
mainder of  the  party  was  picked  up  unobtrusively  at 


118  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

various  points  between  Blackwall  and  Ramsgate. 
The  night  was  spent  at  sea,  and  the  majority  of  the 
company  were  profoundly  mystified  as  to  the  object 
of  an  excursion  which  rapidly  became  uncomfortable. 
There  was  a  vague  idea  on  board  that  it  was  to  be  a 
pleasure  trip  to  Belgium,  until  on  the  next  morning 
the  Prince  paraded  his  force  on  deck  and  startled  them 
with  the  information  that  they  were  the  companions  of 
his  destiny,  bound  for  the  port  of  Boulogne  in  the  in- 
terest of  the  Bonaparte  succession.  Uniforms  were 
served  out,  and  there  was  an  additional  issue  of  one 
hundred  francs  to  each  member  of  the  party.  Cal- 
umny has  added  a  more  convivial  scene ;  but  nervous 
men  are  rarely  intemperate  two  days  out  from  land, 
and  the  malicious  propaganda  of  the  Orleanists  has 
suppressed  the  presence  on  board  among  the  stimu- 
lants of  considerable  quantities  of  ginger-beer  and 
soda-water.  There  was  little  enthusiasm  outside  the 
Prince's  immediate  circle  as  men  stood  talking  to- 
gether behind  the  paddle-boxes  of  the  Edinburgh 
Castle  and  the  steamer  moved  slowly  towards  the 
quiet  coast  of  France. 

They  anchored  off  Wimereux  in  the  dark  hours 
of  the  night,  and  the  ship's  boat  put  off  to  land  this 
singular  invasion.  It  was  about  three  in  the  morning 
of  August  6,  1840,  when  Prince  Louis  Napoleon 
stood  once  more  on  French  territory.  Somewhere 
in  the  darkness  there  was  an  argument  going  on  with 
two  douaniers  whose  professional  instincts  had  been 
outraged  by  the  nocturnal  arrival  of  fifty  persons 
from  a  suspicious  steamer.  It  was  explained  to  them 
that  it  was  a  party  of  the  40th  Infantry  proceeding 
down-Channel  to  Cherbourg  and  delayed  by  trouble 
to  the  paddle  of  their  transport.  They  were  invited 


THE  PRINCE  119 

to  guide  the  party  to  Boulogne ;  but  a  dramatic  colonel 
scared  them  with  a  revelation  of  the  Prince's  identity, 
and  at  the  sight  of  their  genuine  alarm  Louis  mildly 
permitted  them  to  go  back  to  the  village.  As  the  sun 
was  rising,  the  little  column  marched  over  the  shoulder 
of  the  hill  to  Boulogne.  The  Prince  had  come  to  his 
own  again  with  a  standard-bearer  and  fifty  men. 
Towards  five  o'clock  they  entered  the  town  and 
tramped  through  the  silent  streets  in  the  early  light 
of  a  summer  morning.  A  sergeant  turned  out  the 
guard  at  the  sight  of  this  galaxy  of  officers,  but  he 
declined  to  leave  his  post  and  join  the  party.  An 
officer,  who  was  stirring  early,  was  presented  to  the 
Prince;  but  failing  to  appreciate  the  honour,  he 
slipped  down  a  quiet  street  and  warned  the  incorrupt- 
ible Captain  Col-Puygelier  of  the  42nd  Infantry  of 
the  remarkable  invasion.  Meanwhile  the  detachment 
had  arrived  at  the  infantry  barracks.  The  guard 
turned  out  respectfully,  and  they  took  possession  of  the 
barrack-square.  Whilst  Prince  Louis  was  promoting 
non-commissioned  officers  in  Napoleonic  attitudes,  a 
crowd  of  early  loiterers  began  to  gather  at  the  barrack- 
gates;  an  officer  invited  them  to  shout  'Vive 
rEmpereurf  and  under  the  stimulus  of  a  distribu- 
tion of  silver  the  seditious  cry  was  raised.  Lieutenant 
Aladenize,  who  was  an  officer  of  the  battalion,  paraded 
the  42nd,  and  the  Prince  addressed  them  at  some 
length.  He  then  proceeded  to  the  agreeable  business 
of  promoting  and  decorating  such  non-commissioned 
officers  as  had  not  yet  been  presented  to  him.  But 
at  this  stage  the  officers  of  the  battalion  began  to 
arrive  in  barracks,  and  the  truculent  Captain  Col- 
Puygelier  forced  his  way  past  the  sentries  into  the 
square.  He  rallied  his  men  and  commenced  a  violent 


120  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

altercation  with  the  Bonapartists.  Someone  began 
to  shout  'Vive  le  Roil'  and  there  was  a  confused  scene 
in  which  Persigny  was  narrowly  prevented  from  kill- 
ing the  royalist  captain  and  a  pistol  went  off  in  the 
Prince's  hand.  The  attempt  to  win  over  the  infantry 
had  failed,  and  his  party  marched  out  of  barracks  as 
the  drums  of  the  42nd  began  to  alarm  the  town. 

The  Bonapartists  moved  off  in  the  direction  of  the 
upper  town,  where  there  was  a  small  arsenal.  It  was 
about  six  o'clock,  and  a  few  people  were  beginning  to 
move  about  the  streets.  They  were  offered  money 
and  manifestoes  by  this  eccentric  detachment  of  in- 
fantry, and  enjoyed  the  unusual  spectacle  of  the 
Sous-preset  summoning  the  invaders  to  disperse  and 
being  struck  full  in  the  chest  with  the  brass  eagle  of 
a  regimental  standard.  After  this  achievement  the 
company  reached  the  upper  town  and  endeavoured  to 
force  the  Porte  de  Calais.  But  the  gate  resisted  their 
axes;  and  the  expedition,  having  failed  at  two  ob- 
jectives, became  a  retreat.  Some  of  the  older  men 
broke  away  towards  the  harbour,  but  the  Prince  led 
the  survivors  out  into  the  open  country  at  the  back 
of  the  town.  With  a  sudden  reminiscence  of  the 
exigencies  of  drama  he  had  resolved  to  make  a  last 
stand  under  the  Colonne  de  la  Grande  Armee  and  to 
fall  fighting  on  a  windy  ridge  at  the  foot  of  his  uncle's 
monument.  The  gesture,  which  was  in  the  taste  of 
M.  Victor  Hugo,  was  an  effective  one ;  but  it  was  not 
appreciated  by  his  friends.  Some  mounted  police  and 
the  National  Guards  of  Boulogne  were  coming  up 
the  hill,  and  the  Bonapartists  scattered  in  all  direc- 
tions. A  small  party  forced  the  Prince  to  leave  his 
flag  fluttering  at  the  top  of  the  column  and  join  them 
in  a  dash  for  the  seashore.  A  breathless  run  brought 


THE  PRINCE  121 

them  down  to  Wimereux;  but  their  pursuers  were 
close  behind,  and  the  majority  surrendered  on  the 
beach.  The  ringleaders  were  less  cautious,  and  the 
Prince  plunged  into  the  sea  with  Conneau,  Persigny, 
and  a  few  others  in  a  desperate  attempt  to  reach  a 
small  boat.  The  exhausted  men  tried  wildly  to 
climb  into  it  under  a  heavy  fire  from  the  shore.  Two 
men  were  lost,  the  boat  sank,  and  the  Prince  was  hit. 
Two  boats  put  off  towards  them,  and  by  a  supreme 
humiliation  the  survivors  were  rescued  rather  than 
arrested. 

It  was  about  eight  o'clock  when  Prince  Louis  was 
driven  up,  shivering  in  a  borrowed  coat,  to  the  Chateau 
in  the  upper  town  and  went  straight  to  bed.  He  had 
spent  five  hours  as  a  free  man  in  France.  The  Sous- 
prefet,  whose  contusions  were  amply  avenged,  re- 
ported proudly  to  Paris  that  'Louis  Bonaparte  is 
under  arrest'  and  proceeded  to  an  inventory  of  the 
eccentric  cargo  of  the  Edinburgh  Castle,  which  had 
been  brought  into  harbour.  It  included  vehicles  for 
the  Prince's  triumphant  progress  and  a  sumptuous 
provision  of  clothes  for  his  appearance  at  an  evening 
celebration.  Colonel  Parquin's  vulture,  which  had 
remained  disconsolately  on  board  during  the  expedi- 
tion, was  consigned  to  the  town  slaughter-house;  but 
being  a  bird  of  spirit,  it  escaped  and  ended  its  days 
in  a  more  honourable  captivity  with  a  coal-merchant 
at  Arras,  after  providing  the  humourists  of  a  conti- 
nent with  a  succession  of  jokes  of  which  they  never 
wearied  on  the  subject  of  the  new  Emperor  and  his 
eagle.  The  authorities  at  Boulogne  prolonged  the 
excitement  by  restricting  the  use  of  post-horses,  and 
Lord  Hertford  and  Mr.  Croker  were  delayed  for 
as  long  as  two  hours  on  their  way  from  Calais  to 


122  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Paris  by  this  impudent  intrusion  of  French  politics. 
But  the  town  subsided  gradually  into  its  provincial 
repose,  and  the  attempt  on  Boulogne  was  at  an  end. 

On  the  next  day  King  Louis  Philippe  enjoyed  the 
story  in  his  family  circle  at  Eu  with  a  humorous  ap- 
preciation which  did  not  prevent  him  from  taking 
prompt  decisions  as  to  the  disposal  of  the  prisoner; 
and  on  an  August  morning  about  fifty  hours  after 
his  first  landing  on  the  coast  of  France  the  Prince 
drove  out  of  Boulogne  by  the  Paris  road.  He  went 
in  a  closed  carriage,  wearing  under  a  greatcoat  the 
dismal  relics  of  his  military  adventure  and  the  police 
on  the  seat  facing  him  had  orders  from  Paris  to  shoot 
their  prisoner  if  an  escape  was  attempted.  Sentries 
were  posted  along  the  road,  and  as  the  berline  rumbled 
through  the  Boulonnais  he  could  see  out  of  the  win- 
dows the  First  Empire  silhouettes  of  his  Lancer 
escort  and  the  great  Dragoon  helmets  of  the  Gardes 
Municipal^?.  On  the  road  he  spent  a  night  at  the 
unpleasant  Chateau  of  Ham,  and  on  August  12  he 
came  into  Paris.  The  Emperor  had  arrived  in  his 
capital;  but  they  brought  him  in  at  midnight,  and  he 
drove  through  the  empty  streets,  over  the  dark  river 
to  the  Conciergerie.  Whilst  the  preparations  for  a 
state  trial  went  slowly  forward  and  a  valet  in  Carlton 
Gardens  was  packing  for  Paris  some  bed-linen  marked 
with  N  and  a  crown,  the  old  King  made  a  solemn 
progress  to  Boulogne  and  the  fountain  of  honour 
played  gently  upon  his  'dear  comrades  of  the  National 
Guard,  the  42nd  Infantry  and  the  Douanes.'  Louis 
Philippe  struck  triumphant  attitudes  in  the  north ;  the 
valet  in  London  kept  for  himself  the  Prince's  'old  pink 
hunting  coat,  the  leather  breeches,  the  white  breeches, 
the  top-boots,  the  big  green  coat  with  trousers  to 


THE  PRINCE  123 

match,  the  shooting-boots,  the  big  brown  coat,  and 
the  hats';  and  for  six  weeks  the  pretender  sat  in  a 
cell  in  Paris  translating  Schiller.  A  letter  of  con- 
dolence came  from  the  elegant  D'Orsay,  and  one  day 
Madame  Recamier  called  to  see  him.  The  prison  was 
full  of  sentries  (the  Prince  informed  his  counsel  that 
he  proposed,  when  he  came  to  the  throne,  to  make 
certain  modifications  in  the  uniform),  and  some 
offence  was  caused  by  the  Government's  choice  of  a 
cell  for  him.  It  had  recently  been  in  the  occupation 
of  the  man  Fieschi  who  had  endeavoured  without 
success  to  assassinate  the  King  (and  to  anticipate  the 
Gatling  gun)  with  an  elaborate  complication  of  gun- 
barrels.  Political  prisoners  are  notoriously  particular 
as  to  their  prison  comforts  and  dignities,  and  it  was 
felt  that  the  association  was  vaguely  insulting  to  the 
Prince.  It  was  even  resented  by  his  father;  and  the 
strange  old  gentleman,  who  was  still  living  in  Italy 
and  maintained  intermittent  communications  with  his 
son  through  the  medium  of  a  rather  peevish  cor- 
respondence, sent  to  the  French  newspapers  an  emo- 
tional statement  of  his  own  patriotism  and  infirmities 
and  a  somewhat  futile  defence  of  Prince  Louis  as  the 
victim  of  false  friends  and  even,  conceivably,  of 
Orleanist  agents  provocateurs.  The  Prince  was 
disinclined  to  elude  his  responsibility  in  this  manner 
and  replied  with  some  eloquence : 

Tier  de  la  mission  que  je  me  suis  imposee,  je  me 
montrerai  toujours  digne  du  nom  que  je  porte  et  digne  de 
votre  affection.' 

As  the  weeks  went  on,  counsel  were  instructed  for 
the  defence,  and  the  Prince  retained  for  himself  and 
his  friends  a  galaxy  of  political  advocates.  They  were 


124  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

recruited  from  every  group  of  the  Opposition,  and 
the  court  was  provided  with  the  engaging  spectacle 
of  the  Legitimist  Maitre  Berryer  and  the  republican 
Maitre  Jules  Favre  expressing  their  respective  attach- 
ments to  Charles  X.  and  the  Convention  by  defending 
the  Bonapartist  prisoners. 

The  trial  opened  in  the  last  week  of  September 
before  the  Peers  of  France.  It  was  an  odd  tribunal 
for  the  indictment  of  a  Bonaparte,  since  the  roll-call 
of  the  full  court  was  a  Napoleonic  litany.  Davout, 
Marmont,  Lannes,  D'Erlon,  Suchet,  Grouchy, 
Lauriston,  Sebastiani  were  strange  names  for 
Orleanist  judges;  and  with  a  certain  delicacy  they 
abstained  from  sitting.  But  by  a  crude  irony  Molitor, 
Daru,  Dejean,  Claparede,  Excelmans,  and  Pajol  sat 
under  the  presidency  of  Chancellor  Pasquier,  an  ex- 
Prefect  of  Imperial  Police,  to  try  the  Emperor's 
nephew  for  treason.  The  prisoners  were  all  neatly 
dressed  with  white  gloves,  and  the  Prince  wore  on  his 
coat  the  great  plaque  of  the  Legion  of  Honour.  He 
sat  in  the  dock  behind  Berryer  and  next  to  old  General 
Montholon,  and  after  hearing  the  indictment  read, 
he  rose  to  make  a  full  statement  of  his  political  ideals. 
The  opening  was  effective : 

'Pour  la  premiere  fois  de  ma  vie  il  m'est  enfin  permis 
d'elever  la  voix  en  France  et  de  parler  librement  a  des 
Frangais.  Malgre  les  gardes  qui  m'entourent,  malgre  les 
accusations  que  je  viens  d'entendre,  plein  des  souvenirs  de 
ma  premiere  enhance,  en  me  trouvant  dans  ces  murs  du 
Senatf  au  milieu  de  vous  que  je  connais,  messieurs,  je  ne 
peux  pas  croire  que  j'aie  id  besoin  de  me  justifier,  ni 
que  vous  puissiez  etre  mes  juges.' 

The  young  man  was  ceasing  to  be  ridiculous.  He 
expounded  his  principles  and  claimed  that  the  Bona- 


THE  PRINCE  125 

parte  succession  represented  a  decision  of  the  French 
people.  Of  the  attempt  on  Boulogne  he  spoke  with 
real  courage:  lJe  n'ai  point  eu  de  complices.  Seul 
j'ai  tout  resolu,  personne  ria  connu  de  I'avance  ni  mes 
pro  jets,  ni  mes  ressources,  ni  mes  esperances.  Si  je 
suis  coupable  envers  quelqu'un,  c'est  envers  mes  amis 
seuls'  The  attitude  was  effectively  struck.  Then, 
with  a  drop  to  the  staccato  eloquence  of  M.  Victor 
Hugo,  the  Prince  settled  into  his  peroration : 

'Un  dernier  mot,  messieurs.  Je  represente  devant  vous 
un  principe,  une  cause,  une  defaite:  le  principe,  c'est  Id 
souverainete  du  peuple;  la  cause,  celle  de  I'Empire;  la 
defaite,  Waterloo.  Le  principe,  vous  I'avez  reconnu; 
la  cause,  vous  I'avez  servie;  la  defaite,  vous  voulez  la 
venger.' 

The  Prince's  speech  almost  reversed  the  effect  of 
his  failure  at  Boulogne.  The  grotesque  masquerade, 
the  eagle,  the  capture  in  the  water  had  seemed  to 
make  of  the  pretender  a  figure  of  opera  bouffe.  But 
by  his  statement  from  the  dock  he  raised  himself 
once  more  into  serious  politics,  and  none  of  the  efforts 
of  the  prosecution  could  recreate  the  congenial  atmos- 
phere of  farce.  The  trial  dragged  on  for  four  days; 
Berryer  was  cruelly  ironical  to  the  solemn  rows  of 
Counts,  Barons,  and  Marshals  of  the  Empire  who  sat 
to  condemn  Bonapartism;  and  Persigny  was  char- 
acteristically suppressed  half-way  through  a  voluble 
exposition  of  the  Bonapartist  idea  and  published  his 
undelivered  peroration  in  a  newspaper.  But  the  con- 
viction of  the  prisoners  was  never  in  doubt,  and  the 
court  was  only  concerned  to  consider  its  sentence. 
Prince  Louis  Napoleon  was  sent  to  imprisonment  for 
life  in  a  French  fortress,  and  the  conspirators  received 


126  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

sentences  varying  from  two  to  twenty  years.  All 
except  four  were  confined  at  Doullens,  where  Parquin 
died  in  prison.  But  the  Prince,  Conneau,  and 
Montholon  were  reserved  for  the  dismal  Chateau  of 
Ham,  and  the  bright  adventure  of  Boulogne  seemed 
to  end  in  the  trailing  mists  of  the  Somme. 


XI 

PRISON  life,  to  judge  from  the  criminal  classes,  is  an 
odd  school  of  character,  and  it  is  rarely  included  in 
the  normal  curriculum  of  princes.  Ex-convicts  have 
a  strange  habit  of  silence,  and  Louis  Napoleon  owed 
much  of  his  manner  and  something  of  his  character 
to  the  six  silent  years  which  he  spent  in  the  citadel 
of  Ham.  When  a  young  man  goes  into  a  cell  at 
thirty-two  and  remains  in  prison  until  he  is  thirty- 
eight,  the  experience  will  inevitably  deflect  or  deepen 
the  normal  lines  of  his  development.  Louis  in  1840 
was  a  silent  man,  and  prison  only  deepened  his  silence. 
His  mother's  visitors  in  Switzerland  had  always 
thought  him  quiet.  Madame  Recamier  found  him 
'poll,  distingue,  taciturne'  and  Chateaubriand  saw 
run  jeune  homme  studieuoc,  instruit,  plein  d'honneur 
et  naturellement  grave*  The  little  world  of  New 
York  in  1837  had  remarked  his  silence,  and  the  defect 
of  taciturnity,  which  Continental  observers  regretted, 
was  highly  appreciated  in  London  society  as  a  genteel 
reserve.  Six  years  in  a  feudal  fortress  varied  with  a 
little  writing,  an  afternoon  walk  on  the  ramparts,  and 
an  evening  game  of  whist  with  two  friends  and  the 
governor  of  the  prison  drove  him  still  further  within 
himself,  and  the  queer,  silent  potentate  who  was  to 
mystify  Europe  from  behind  the  dull  eyes  of  the 
sphinx  of  the  Tuileries  owed  much  of  his  impenetrable 
manner  to  his  six  years  as  a  political  prisoner  at  Ham. 

127 


128  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

The  prison  was  a  massive  fragment  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  less  interesting  to  its  occupants  than  to  amateurs 
of  military  architecture,  since  the  view  commanded 
by  its  admirable  bartizans  consisted  almost  completely 
of  mist.  The  situation  was  uncomfortably  damp,  and 
the  Prince's  two  rooms  were  inadequately  furnished  in 
the  style  of  the  lodging-house  rather  than  the  cell. 
There  were  a  few  planks  fixed  along  the  sitting-room 
wall  to  serve  as  book-shelves,  and  the  innumerable 
draughts  contended  with  a  large  screen  of  which  the 
prisoner  mitigated  the  ugliness  by  cutting  out  and 
pasting  on  some  of  the  less  sympathetic  of  the 
Charivaris  caricatures  of  the  reigning  dynasty.  His 
life  within  these  narrow  limits  was  of  a  distressing 
regularity.  In  the  morning  he  worked  in  his  room; 
after  lunch  there  was  a  little  dismal  exercise  on  the 
ramparts  in  view  of  a  few  trees  and  a  depressing  reach 
of  the  St.  Quentin  canal  with  a  detective  in  attendance 
who  never  let  the  Prince's  red  kepi  out  of  sight,  or  a 
pitiable  attempt  at  horticulture  in  a  little  garden 
planted  with  mignonette,  and  at  one  time  (until  the 
expense  became  too  great)  he  rode  gloomily  round 
the  courtyard  while  the  guards  were  doubled  on  the 
castle  walls  and  the  governor  of  the  prison  officiated 
as  ring-master;  then  he  worked  until  dinner  and 
passed  the  evening  with  Conneau,  Montholon,  and  a 
pack  of  cards.  In  that  quiet,  grey  school,  as  the 
sentries  tramped  up  and  down  in  the  mist  and  the 
barges  slid  by  on  the  St.  Quentin  canal,  Louis 
Napoleon  learned  the  gift  of  silence. 

His  mental  life  was  inevitably  more  active,  and 
in  the  six  years  which  he  passed  by  the  light  of  his 
reading-lamp  the  Prince  received  an  education  un- 
usual to  royalty.  He  filled  his  book-shelves  and  wrote 


THE  PRINCE  129 

steadily  behind  the  white  curtains  of  his  room.  The 
ministers  of  Louis  Philippe,  with  financial  caution 
more  worthy  of  a  landlady  than  a  government,  had 
allowed  the  extravagant  sum  of  600  francs  for  the 
preparation  of  his  apartments;  but  since  the  loan  of 
books  is  comparatively  inexpensive  in  cases  where  the 
borrower  is  in  prison,  they  permitted  him  to  draw 
freely  on  the  national  libraries,  and  he  read  with  the 
persistence  of  an  invalid.  Indeed,  it  became  his  boast 
in  later  years  that  he  had  'graduated  at  the  University 
of  Ham,'  and  the  degree  of  that  non-existent  faculty 
was  more  laboriously  earned  than  the  more  impressive 
academic  distinctions  with  which  royal  persons  are 
frequently  decorated.  His  reading  was  rapidly  trans- 
ferred into  a  full  correspondence  and  a  queer  series  of 
miscellaneous  writings.  He  reached  his  prison  on 
October  7,  1840  (it  was  the  day  on  which  a  French 
cruiser  four  thousand  miles  away  was  anchoring 
respectfully  off  St.  Helena  to  bring  his  uncle's  body 
to  France),  and  before  the  year  was  out  he  had 
plunged  into  'trente-six  mille  choses  a  la  foisS  The 
return  of  the  dead  Emperor  to  his  capital  inspired 
the  Prince  to  an  eloquent  exercise  on  the  contrast 
between  the  uncle  at  the  Invalides  and  the  nephew 
in  prison,  and  in  a  desperate  hunt  for  employment 
he  converted  a  corridor  into  a  miniature  shooting- 
range.  Like  so  many  solitaries,  he  turned  to  inven- 
tion, and  early  in  1841  he  was  on  the  track  of  a  minor 
improvement  in  French  musketry  which  he  proposed 
to  submit  to  the  War  Office.  With  a  touch  of  his 
mother's  virtuosity  he  copied  a  picture  of  his  prison 
for  Lady  Blessington,  and  then  as  an  escape  from  the 
present  he  plunged  into  English  history.  French 
politicians  have  always  been  careful  students  of 


130  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

British  revolutions,  although  they  appear  to  have 
learnt  little  from  them  beyond  the  names  of  the  charac- 
ters. The  contemporaries  of  Napoleon  talked  fluently 
about  Cromwell  and  Monk,  and  now  Guizot  had 
brought  into  fashion  a  parallel  between  the  Glorious 
Revolution  of  1688  and  the  July  Revolution  of  1830. 
The  Prince  was  disinclined  to  admit  the  accuracy  of 
his  comparison  of  Louis  Philippe  to  the  heaven-sent 
William  III.  and  plunged  into  the  authorities  for  a 
refutation.  Hume,  Smollett,  and  the  French  his- 
torians were  sent  to  Ham,  and  in  the  spring  he 
published  the  Fragments  Historiques,  1688  et  1830. 
The  pamphlet  was  a  skilful  succession  of  variations 
on  a  theme  of  Guizot,  demonstrating  that  the  true 
analogy  to  William  of  Orange  was  rather  to  be  found 
in  a  young  man  who  should  invade  a  country  at  the 
head  of  a  small  force  proclaiming  as  his  intentions: 
' Je  renverserai  un  gouvernement,  en  gardant  intact  le 
prestige  d'autorite;  j'etablirai  la  liberte  sans  desordre, 
et  le  pouvoir  sans  violence.  Pour  justifier  mon  initia- 
tive et  mon  intervention  personelle  dans  une  lutte  si 
grave,  je  ferai  valoir  pour  les  uns  mon  droit  heredi- 
taire,  pour  les  autres  mes  principes,  pour  tous  les 
inter ets  communs.  .  .  .'  The  approximation  of 
Boulogne  to  Torbay  was  complete,  and  the  pitiless 
pursuit  of  his  parallel  even  led  the  Prince  to  indicate 
vaguely  an  analogy  between  the  Seven  Bishops  and 
the  acquitted  conspirators  of  Strasburg  which  was 
highly  complimentary  to  Colonel  Vaudry  and  his 
operatic  brunette.  The  tables  were  ingeniously  turned 
on  Louis  Philippe,  and  it  was  demonstrated  with  a 
wealth  of  quotations  from  Guizot  that  the  real  proto- 
type of  the  King  of  the  French  was  to  be  found  in  the 
'political  atheism'  of  Charles  II.,  in  the  Restoration 


THE  PRINCE  131 

cynicism  which  substituted  material  advancement  for 
national  honour  and  glory  and  destroyed  faith  by 
cunning.  The  comparison  was  startling  to  French 
readers  familiar  with  the  private  life  of  their  elderly 
King,  but  there  was  an  effective  ring  in  the  peroration : 

'Elle  est  triste,  I'histoire  d'un  regne  qui  ne  se  signale 
pas  que  des  proces  politiques  et  des  traites  honteux,  et  qui 
ne  laisse  apres  lui  au  peuple  qu'un  germe  de  revolution, 
et  aux  rois  qu'un  exemple  deshonorant.' 

The  moral  was  sharply  pointed,  even  if  it  had  been 
necessary  slightly  to  adorn  the  tale.  The  argument 
was  occasionally  lit  up  by  a  flash  of  Napoleonic 
eloquence  (Tarmee  est  une  epee  qw  a  la  gloire  pour 
poignee'),  and  there  were  passages  which  show  a 
queer  prevision  of  the  coup  d'etat: 

'Un  gouvernement  pent  souvent  violer  impunement  la 
liberte.  .  .' 

'En  general,  les  revolutions  conduites  et  executees  par 
un  chef  tournent  entierement  au  profit  des  masses;  car, 
pour  reussir,  le  chef  est  oblige  d'abonder  entierement  dans 
le  sens  national,  et,  pour  se  maintenir,  il  doit  rester  fidele 
aux  interets  qui  I'ont  fait  triompher.' 

The  epilogue  was  still  more  characteristic  of  the 
coming  reign: 

'Marches  a  la  tete  de  idees  de  votre  siecle,  ces  idees 
vous  suivent  et  vous  soutiennent.  Marches  a  leur  suite, 
elles  vous  entrainent.  Marches  contre  elles,  elles  vous 
renversent,' 

So  the  Prince  sat  writing  in  his  little  room  through 
the  spring  of  1841,  with  a  line  of  Guizot  written  large 
on  the  wall:  'Pour  les  peuples  comme  pour  les  in- 


132  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

dividus,  la  souff ranee  n'est  pas  tou jours  perdue?  The 
damp  of  the  place  was  gaining  cruelly  on  his  health; 
but  he  was  permitted  to  see  a  few  visitors,  and  one 
of  them  remembered  for  years  the  look  which  he 
caught  on  the  Prince's  face  as  he  turned  to  go  and 
the  lonely  man  stood  staring  after  him.  In  the  sum- 
mer he  set  out  in  pursuit  of  a  sound  historical  parallel 
and  began  to  collect  material  for  a  book  on  Charle- 
magne, in  which  that  misunderstood  German  primitive 
would  doubtless  have  received  a  strongly  Napoleonic 
flavour.  He  even  elicited  a  bibliography  of  the  sub- 
ject from  Sismondi.  But  as  the  year  wore  on,  history 
was  neglected  in  favour  of  the  more  active  delights  of 
chemistry.  An  empty  room  was  converted  into  a 
laboratory,  and  a  local  chemist  was  permitted  to  assist 
his  experiments.  Faithful  Bonapartist  correspondents 
were  alarmed  with  strange  problems  about  the  density 
of  gases,  and  the  Prince's  electrical  work  even  received 
the  mild  commendation  of  a  learned  society.  Then  he 
returned  to  more  familiar  ground  and  began  to  revise 
his  Manuel  d'Artillerie  for  republication.  But  his 
attention  was  caught  by  a  new  subject,  and  in  the 
summer  of  1842  he  startled  his  supporters  by  pub- 
lishing a  substantial  work  under  the  forbidding  title 
of  Analyse  de  la  Question  des  Sucres.  Beet  sugar 
is  an  odd  topic  for  a  pretender,  and  Prince  Louis 
treated  it  with  a  wealth  of  established  and  agricultural 
technicality.  It  created  some  interest  in  the  sugar 
trade,  went  into  a  second  edition,  and  stands  in  the 
Protectionist  severity  of  its  doctrine  as  an  ironical 
contradiction  of  the  Free  Trade  policy  pursued  by  its 
author  when  his  ministers  negotiated  with  Mr.  Cobden 
the  treaty  of  1860. 

But  the  Prince's  attention  was  not  fixed  exclusively 


THE  PRINCE  133 

on  carbonic  acid  gas  and  sugar  islands.  He  studied 
through  the  newspapers  the  slow  drift  of  French 
opinion,  and  in  a  letter  of  rare  self-revelation  he 
showed  that  hope  had  not  died  in  him: 

'En  1833  I'Empereur  et  son  fils  etaient  marts;  il  n'y 
avait  plus  d'heritiers  de  la  cause  imperiale.  La  France 
n'en  connaissait  plus  aucun.  Quelques  Bonaparte  parais- 
saient,  il  est  vrai,  fa  et  la  sur  I'arriere-scene  du  monde 
comme  des  corps  sans  vie,  momies  petrifiees  de  fantomes 
imponderables;  mais  pour  le  peuple  la  lignee  etait  rompue; 
tous  les  Bonaparte  etaient  morts.  Eh  bien,  j'ai  rattache 
le  filj  je  me  suis  ressuscite  de  moi-meme  et  avec  mes  propres 
forces,  et  je  suis  aujourd'hui  a  vingt  heures  de  Paris  une 
epee  de  Damocles  pour  le  gouvernement.  Enfin,  j'ai  fait 
mon  canot  avec  de  veritables  ecorces  d'arbres,  j'ai  construit 
mes  voiles,  j'ai  eleve  ma  rame  et  je  ne  demttnde  plus  aux 
dieux  qu'un  vent  qui  me  conduit.' 

There  was  always  fau  fond  du  cceur  le  seul  soutien, 
le  seul  guide  certain  dans  des  positions  exceptionnellest 
la  foi  dans  ma  mission/  It  was  a  queer  doctrine : 

'Je  crois*  qu'il  y  a  certains  hommes  qui  naissent  pour 
servir  de  moyen  a  la  marche  du  genre  humain,  comme  ces 
animaux  qui  naissent,  soii  pour  detruire  d'autres  animaux 
plus  nuisibles  qu'eux,  soit  pour  servir  de  germes,  quand 
Us  sont  morls,  a  d'autres  etres  plus  perfectionnes.  Je 
me  considere  comme  un  de  ces  animaux,  et  j'attends  avec 
resignation  mais  avec  confiance  le  moment,  ou  de  vivre  de 
ma  vie  providentielle,  ou  de  mourir  de  ma  mort  fatale, 
persuade  que,  des  deux  manieres,  je  serai  utile  a  la  France 
d'abord,  de  I'humanite  ensuite.' 

In  this  temper  he  became  an  active  contributor  of 
anonymous  articles  to  the  provincial  press.  They 
covered  almost  the  entire  field  of  political  and  econo- 
mic organisation  with  a  system  of  lucid  and  dogmatic 


134  SECOND  EMPIRE 

views  from  many  of  which  their  author  had  the 
courage  to  dissent  when  he  had  reached  a  position  to 
enforce  them.  When  he  approached  the  military 
problem,  the  irony  deepened,  and  he  became  the  ad- 
vocate in  1843  of  the  system  of  recruiting  with  which 
Prussia  broke  his  Empire  in  1870.  Meanwhile  he 
corresponded  promiscuously  with  Bonapartists  and 
democrats  and  entertained  his  leisure  with  the  prepa- 
ration of  an  elaborate  history  of  artillery.  His  princi- 
pal assistant  was  an  early  friend  whom  he  had  known 
at  Malmaison;  she  had  already  conducted  painful 
researches  for  him  into  the  sugar  problem,  and  she 
was  now  sent  round  the  booksellers  and  libraries  in 
pursuit  of  information  about  early  bombards  and 
Renaissance  ballistics  and  the  effect  of  gun-fire  in 
Algeria. 

The  prince  sat  by  his  reading-lamp  at  Ham,  sur- 
rounded with  notes  on  gunnery  and  sketches  of 
limbers.  Sometimes  he  seemed  almost  to  lose  hope 
and  wrote:  'La  prison  est  ime  mort  anticipee.  On 
ne  m'ecrit  plus,  on  m'oublie.  .  .  .'  And  sometimes 
he  trailed  off  into  introspection  and  religious  reflec- 
tions. But  he  kept  a  brave  face  before  his  callers; 
Chateaubriand  and  Louis  Blanc  and  his  friends  from 
London  (and  even  on  one  delightful  occasion  the 
frivolous  but  accomplished  Mile.  Dejazet)  saw  a 
pale  man  with  a  slight  foreign  accent  who  received 
them  in  a  dismal  little  room  and  talked  eagerly 
through  the  few  rationed  hours  of  their  visit.  His 
interest  in  the  outer  world  was  undiminished  by  his 
excursions  into  the  early  history  of  gunpowder,  and 
in  the  spring  of  1844  he  entered  the  field  of  popular 
economics  with  a  pamphlet  on  the  problem  of  poverty. 
The  Extinction  du  Pauperisme  was  not  a  subtle  or  a 


THE  PRINCE  135 

profound  work ;  with  engaging  simplicity  it  advocated 
the  abolition  of  unemployment  by  means  of  the  trans- 
fer of  surplus  labour  to  agricultural  colonies  formed 
for  the  development  of  the  waste  lands  of  France. 
The  workers  were  to  be  brigaded  in  a  semi-military 
organisation,  and  the  project  blandly  ignored  the 
pardonable  distaste  of  the  poor  for  regimentation  and 
the  limited  qualifications  for  agriculture  possessed  by 
an  unemployed  textile  operative.  But  it  was  well 
received  in  those  advanced  circles  which  were  to  suc- 
cumb four  years  later  to  the  similar  fascinations  of  the 
Ateliers  Nationaux,  and  the  Prince  received  polite 
letters  from  such  oddly  assorted  democrats  as 
Beranger  and  George  Sand,  while  large  numbers  of 
French  working  men  were  favourably  impressed  by 
this  evidence  of  the  pretender's  gracious  interest  in 
their  condition.  A  few  months  later  King  Joseph 
died  after  his  long  exile,  and  Prince  Louis  published 
a  polite  memoir  of  his  uncle.  The  ex-King  of  Spain 
and  Naples  was  not  an  impressive  figure,  but  the 
occasion  seemed  to  merit  a  muffled  roll  of  Bonapartist 
drums.  His  biographer  even  asserted  that  Joseph 
had  been  so  imperfectly  acquainted  with  the  brother, 
the  Emperor,  as  to  identify  his  views  with  the  Idees 
Napoleoniennes. 

But  gradually,  as  the  fifth  year  of  his  imprisonment 
wore  on,  the  writing-table  in  the  mist  at  Ham  became 
intolerable  to  the  Prince.  Visitors  were  a  faint  echo 
of  the  world,  and  the  young  lady  from  the  local 
laundry,  whom  her  friends  ( and  students  of  historical 
scandal)  knew  more  picturesquely  as  'Alexandrine  la 
Belle  Sabotiere,'  was  a  very  pale  reflection  of  the 
gaiety  of  princes.  But  the  echo  and  the  reflection 
seemed  to  trouble  the  lonely  man.  He  began  to 


136  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

trifle  with  one  of  those  vast  designs  which  fascinate 
men  in  small  rooms,  and  discussed  with  a  Central 
American  diplomat  the  possibility  of  an  inter-oceanic 
canal.  Nicaragua,  with  a  laudable  instinct  for  names 
which  look  well  on  a  prospectus,  made  a  flattering 
offer  to  the  Prince;  and  he  seemed  to  contemplate 
leaving  Europe  to  assume  the  governorship  of  the 
canal  zone  of  the  Candle  Napoleone  de  Nicaragua. 
That  coy  republic  jilted  a  Belgian  syndicate  in  favour 
of  Prince  Louis ;  deferential  gentlemen  came  to  Ham 
from  the  Nicaraguan  Legation  to  convey  the  wishes 
of  their  government;  the  Prince  made  sketch-maps 
and  composed  an  eloquent  pamphlet  in  which  he 
demolished  the  claims  of  Panama  and  Chagres  in 
comparison  with  the  maritime  glories  of  Realejo  and 
San  Juan;  and  the  whole  strange  episode  left  him 
with  a  vague  attraction  towards  Central  America 
which  was  to  make  the  tragedy  of  Mexico.  Slowly  the 
fascination  of  the  outer  world  began  to  gain  on  him, 
and  it  steadily  became  less  possible  to  make  a  life 
out  of  pamphleteering  at  long  range  and  archaeology 
at  second  hand.  An  English  friend  was  asked  to 
make  a  move  for  his  release ;  but  it  produced  no  result. 
Then,  towards  the  end  of  1845,  his  father  asked  that 
he  might  see  his  son  once  more  and  for  the  last  time. 
The  strange  old  man,  who  was  still  living  in  Italy,  had 
reached  that  advanced  age  which  is  rarely  attainable 
except  by  chronic  invalids.  Since  the  day  in  1810 
when  he  abandoned  his  family  and  the  throne  of 
Holland  King  Louis  had  played  little  part  in  his  son's 
life  except  as  an  irritable  correspondent  and  the  exact- 
ing host  of  dutiful  visits.  The  Prince's  efforts  at 
filial  virtue  had  been  consistently  discouraged,  and 
when  he  was  an  active  pretender  to  the  throne  of 


THE  PRINCE  137 

France,  he  received  from  his  father  an  almost  illegible 
letter  in  which  patient  research  has  deciphered  an 
angry  request  that  he  should  write  more  distinctly. 
But  although  Louis  regarded  his  father  without 
enthusiasm,  the  old  man's  request  to  see  his  son  was 
turned  to  excellent  account.  The  Prince  approached 
the  Government  in  the  attitude  of  a  grieving  son. 
Filial  virtue  makes  an  irresistible  appeal  to  French 
opinion,  and  when  the  young  man  undertook  to  return 
to  prison  from  his  father's  death-bed,  it  was  difficult 
to  see  how  Louis  Philippe  could  refuse.  An  agitation 
was  started  in  Prince  Louis'  favour  among  the 
deputies  of  the  Opposition,  and  the  rotund  eloquence 
of  M.  Odilon  Barrot  was  enlisted  in  his  support.  But 
the  Government  insisted  that  its  prisoner  should  take 
the  tone  of  a  suppliant ;  and  having  struck  his  attitude, 
he  refused  to  humiliate  himself.  The  negotiation 
failed,  and  the  Prince  remained  at  Ham. 

It  was  the  year  1846,  and  Louis  Napoleon  was  still 
a  prisoner.  His  mood  was  becoming  a  little  desperate, 
and  he  wrote :  ' Je  ne  sortirai  plus  de  Ham  que  pour 
oiler  aux  Tuileries  ou  au  cimetiere/  The  Government 
had  made  an  escape  morally  possible  for  him  by  its 
refusal  of  leave  of  absence  to  visit  a  dying  father  and 
its  recent  release  of  the  other  prisoners  of  Boulogne. 
With  his  friends  at  liberty  (except  Parquin,  who  had 
died  at  Doullens)  the  Prince  might  honourably  dream 
of  prison-breaking,  and  in  the  dark  evenings  of  the 
first  months  of  1846  he  found  a  more  immediate  topic 
than  the  artillery  of  the  past  or  the  canals  of  the 
future.  A  little  money  was  raised  for  the  purpose 
by  the  opera  bouffe  expedient  of  a  treaty  with  another 
claimant  to  a  throne,  and  the  escape  of  an  imprisoned 
Emperor  of  the  French  was  financed  by  an  exiled 


138  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Duke  of  Brunswick.  His  plan  was  told  to  Conneau 
in  May;  the  doctor's  sentence  had  expired,  but  he 
stayed  in  the  Prince's  service  at  his  own  request  and 
he  opposed  the  desperate  project  of  an  escape.  The 
Prince  insisted,  and  that  month  he  borrowed  a  British 
passport  from  one  of  his  visitors.  His  servant  bought 
a  suit  of  workman's  clothes  in  the  town,  and  in  the  last 
week  of  May  the  plan  was  ready.  The  Prince's  build- 
ing was  under  repair,  and  he  proposed  to  walk  out  of 
his  room  among  the  workmen  and,  in  the  character  of 
one  of  them,  to  pass  the  gate  into  the  open  country. 
At  six  on  a  Monday  morning  (it  was  May  25,  1846) 
the  Bonaparte  pretender  put  on  a  blue  blouse  and 
stood  up  as  a  builder's  labourer.  He  was  a  pale  man, 
but  his  face  was  rouged.  Soon  after  seven  he  shaved 
off  his  moustache,  and  a  few  minutes  later  he  stepped 
out  into  the  passage  carrying  a  plank  which  had  been 
one  of  his  book-shelves.  He  took  a  knife  with  him, 
since  he  had  formed  a  cold  resolve  never  to  be  re- 
captured. In  the  passage  a  workman  spoke  to  him, 
and  at  the  door  he  passed  two  gaolers.  With  a  pipe 
in  his  mouth  and  a  plank  on  his  shoulder  the  Prince 
walked  across  the  courtyard  under  the  eyes  of  the 
guard  on  duty  at  the  gate.  Half-way  across  his  pipe 
dropped  and  broke,  and  with  an  effort  of  control  he 
stooped  to  collect  the  fragments.  At  the  gate  the 
sergeant  of  the  guard  was  reading  a  letter.  The 
Prince's  servant  and  a  little  dog  had  gone  down  the 
road  in  front  of  him,  and  with  a  plank  held  between 
his  face  and  the  sentry  he  walked  slowly  out  of  the 
citadel  of  Ham.  On  the  road  beyond  he  met  two 
workmen,  and  just  outside  the  town  he  threw  away  his 
plank  and  sat  down  to  wait.  There  was  a  cross  in  a 
graveyard  by  the  roadside,  and  the  Prince  knelt  sud- 


THE  PRINCE  139 

denly  and  gave  thanks  for  his  escape.  His  man  came 
up  the  road  with  a  cab,  and  they  drove  to  the  out- 
skirts of  St.  Quentin.  There  the  valet  went  into  the 
town  to  hire  a  chaise,  and  Louis  Napoleon  walked 
across  to  the  Valenciennes  road.  The  chaise  followed, 
and  about  two  in  the  afternoon  they  drove  into  Valen- 
ciennes after  exasperating  their  driver  with  a  con- 
tinual 'Postilion,  cent  sous  de  pourboire/  For  two 
hours  they  sat  wretchedly  in  the  railway  station.  An 
official  looked  at  the  British  passport  and  someone  in 
the  station  asked  the  valet  after  his  master  the  Prince. 
Then,  about  four  o'clock,  a  train  steamed  out  of 
Valenciennes  and  passed  the  Belgian  frontier.  Whilst 
Conneau  at  the  prison  was  delaying  the  alarm  with  an 
elaborate  comedy  of  medicine  and  a  dummy  in  the 
Prince's  bed,  Louis  Napoleon  was  a  free  man  in 
Belgium  on  the  road  to  England  with  the  memory 
of  his  years  in  prison  and  an  old  reflective  habit  which 
he  took  with  him  from  Ham  to  the  Tuileries. 


XII 

THE  Prince  resumed  his  life  in  London  on  a  May 
morning  in  1846,  and  for  two  years  he  re-entered 
English  society.  He  put  up  at  a  hotel  in  Jermyn 
Street,  and  on  his  first  walk  up  Bond  Street  he  met 
Lord  Malmesbury.  That  evening  he  dined  with 
Lady  Blessington  at  Gore  House,  and  the  elegant 
D' Or  say  was  offended  by  the  spectacle  of  a  half- 
shaved  Prince  who  was  regrowing  his  moustache  and 
imperial  after  a  brief  appearance  as  a  smooth-faced 
artisan.  He  was  even  to  be  seen  at  a  breakfast  of  Mr. 
Monckton  Milnes'  with  D'Orsay,  Disraeli,  and  Sulei- 
man Pasha,  who  had  been  at  Nisib  and  refought  the 
battle  with  spoons  and  tumblers  on  the  table-cloth; 
Mr.  Cobden,  who  was  of  the  party  and  feeling  a  trifle 
anxious  about  Sir  Robert  and  the  Corn  Bill,  found 
the  Prince  'evidently  a  weak  fellow,  but  mild  and 
amiable.'  The  world  was  kind  to  him  on  his  arrival 
in  town,  and  he  hastily  assured  the  governments  of 
Great  Britain  and  France  that  his  intentions  were 
purely  peaceful.  He  made  every  effort  to  obtain  a 
passport  for  the  visit  to  his  father  at  Florence.  But 
France  and  Austria  were  hostile,  and  the  Grand- 
Duke  of  Tuscany  became  frankly  panic-stricken  at 
the  prospect  of  his  arrival.  His  application  was  re- 
fused, and  in  July  the  old  man  died,  as  he  had  chosen 
to  live,  alone.  Before  the  news  came,  Prince  Louis 
spent  an  evening  at  the  play  to  hear  Rachel;  it  was 

140 


THE  PRINCE  141 

his  first  contact  with  classical  French  tragedy,  and  he 
made  it  in  a  London  theatre. 

In  the  summer  he  went  off  to  Bath  for  his  health. 
The  formative  soliloquies  of  Ham  had  done  much 
for  Prince  Louis'  intelligence ;  but  the  dripping  walls 
of  the  citadel  and  the  white  mist  of  the  St.  Quentin 
canal  had  made  a  rheumatic  of  him,  and  when  his 
Etudes  sur  le  Passe  et  I'Avenir  de  I'Artillerie  were 
published  in  the  early  autumn  of  1846,  he  was  seeking 
health  on  the  hills  above  Clifton.  Lady  Blessington 
was  at  the  waters,  and  Mr.  Landor  left  cards  on  the 
Prince.  Louis  Napoleon  returned  the  call,  and  there 
was  an  exchange  of  courtesies.  His  French  friends 
were  urged  to  come  to  England  by  the  packet  from 
Ostend  and  to  pay  especial  attention  to  the  marine 
beauties  of  Ramsgate;  Prince  Louis  offered  to  meet 
them  in  London  and  escort  them  to  Bath  by  the  old 
broad-gauge  Great  Western  Railway.  But  when  the 
visit  took  place  and  the  Prince's  faithful  corre- 
spondent on  matters  of  artillery  and  agriculture 
arrived  in  England,  she  and  her  husband  were  met  by 
another  Bonaparte.  Jerome's  ill-natured  son  Napo- 
leon had  joined  his  cousin  Louis  at  Bath,  and  there 
were  great  walks  of  the  little  French  party  along  the 
English  hills. 

Late  in  the  year  the  Prince  was  back  in  London, 
wearing  his  buttoned  frock-coat  and  his  strapped 
trousers  in  the  world  where  Lord  Eglinton  played 
whist  and  Lady  Jersey  displayed  her  well-bred  im- 
pertinence. Although  he  was  living  somewhere  in 
St.  John's  Wood,  he  was  a  member  of  two  good  clubs 
and  saw  something  of  Bulwer  Lytton  at  Craven  Cot- 
tage and  more  of  Lady  Blessington  at  Gore  House. 
He  even  designed  artistic  stalls  for  Lady  London- 


142  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

derry    and    Lady    Combermere    to    facilitate    their 
charitable  sales  at  the  great  military  bazaar  held  at 
the  Guards'  barracks  in  Regent's  Park  in  aid  of  the 
starving  Irish.    But  the  sands  were  running  a  little 
low ;  he  seemed  to  be  without  prospects  as  a  pretender, 
and  the  long  solitude  of  Ham  had  sharpened  his 
appetite  for  life.    The  association  with  the  blonde  and 
beautiful  Miss  Howard  was  resumed,  and  the  Prince 
installed  her  in  a  house  in  Berkeley  Street.    But  the 
advantages  of  this  relation  were  not  one-sided;  the 
lady  had  gathered  a  considerable  fortune  in  the  course 
of  a  varied  career  which  earned  her  the  successive 
esteem  of  a  gentleman  rider,  a  major  in  the  Guards, 
the  fastidious  D'Orsay,  and  several  members  of  the 
aristocracy;  and  when  she  became  the  Prince's  un- 
licensed consort,  she  was  able  to  give  considerable 
financial  support  to  his  fortunes.     Such  assistance 
was  not  unnecessary  at  this  stage  of  his  career,  since 
he  had  elected  to  seek  entertainment  on  the  turf. 
Early  in  1847  he  established  himself  expensively  in 
King  Street  Houses,  the  embryo  of  King  Street,  St. 
James's,  and  his  expenses  there  and  at  Crockford's 
steadily  exceeded  his  income.    Financial  embarrass- 
ment, which  may  serve  to  private  gentlemen  for  a 
social  distinction,  is  vaguely  discreditable  in  a  prince ; 
and  Louis'  public  reputation  had  suffered  a  little  from 
the  fashionable  atmosphere  of  mortgages  and  promis- 
sory notes  in  which  he  passed  the  year  1847.     His 
expenditure  included  the  maintenance  of  a  considera- 
ble pension  list ;  Napoleonic  veterans,  Swiss  villagers 
from  Arenenberg,  Bonapartist  sympathisers  of  every 
sort  felt  little  diffidence  in  relying  upon  Prince  Louis' 
charity;  a  practice  had  to  be  bought  for  the  faithful 
Conneau  when  he  emerged  from  imprisonment  to 


THE  PRINCE  143 

medicine ;  and  although  the  Prince  kept  a  good  balance 
at  Baring's,  there  must  have  been  moments  in  1847 
when  he  backed  horses  with  something  less  than  a 
sportsman's  indifference  to  the  result  of  the  race. 
There  was  even  an  attempt  to  raise  money  on  the 
great  Nicaragua  Canal  scheme  from  a  financial 
gentleman  who  lived  in  Hyde  Park  Street. 

It  almost  seemed,  in  the  last  year  of  his  long  exile, 
as  though  the  light  of  that  star  with  which  he  had 
for  so  long  entertained  genteel  dinner-tables  was 
beginning  to  burn  a  little  low.  He  was  almost  forty, 
and  he  had  risen  no  higher  in  the  world  than  Lady 
Blessington's  drawing-room.  The  French  king  was 
very  old;  but  he  would  leave  an  innumerable  family. 
Louis  kept  up  an  intermittent  flicker  of  Bonapartism 
in  a  perfunctory  correspondence  with  a  French  his- 
torian about  his  own  record,  and  a  gesture  of  despair- 
ing exile  when  they  brought  his  father  and  brother 
home  to  their  graves  in  France.  But  France  with 
its  politics  began  to  seem  so  far  away;  and  England, 
where  one  could  at  least  live  like  a  gentleman,  was 
near  at  hand.  One  might  even  marry  a  charming 
Englishwoman  with  sloping  shoulders.  There  was 
a  pretty  Miss  Seymour ;  but  she  preferred  a  gentleman 
from  the  west  of  England,  and  the  Prince  had  the 
infelicity  of  attending  her  wedding.  Then  there  was 
the  rich  Miss  Burdett,  whom  the  world  had  almost 
married  to  the  old  Duke  of  Wellington  and  the  course 
of  time  was  to  solemnise  into  the  Baroness  Burdett- 
Coutts.  But  the  nearest  of  Prince  Louis'  matrimonial 
ventures  was  his  successful  offer  to  Miss  Emily 
Rowles.  The  young  lady  received  some  charming 
presents  from  the  Prince ;  but  she  was  shocked  by  the 
little  house  in  Berkeley  Street,  and  the  affair  was 


144  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

broken  off.  Her  parents  had  a  delightful  house  at 
Chislehurst.  It  was  called  Camden  Place;  and  when 
strange  news  came  from  Paris  early  in  1848,  Louis 
Napoleon  set  out  to  reach  it  by  way  of  the  Tuileries 
and  Sedan. 


THE  PRESIDENT 


14$ 


THE  PRESIDENT 

I 

THERE  was  an  agreeable  spontaneity  about  the 
Revolution  of  1848  which  it  shares  with  the  best 
earthquakes.  On  the  morning  of  Febuary  22  Louis 
Philippe  was  King  of  the  French:  before  sunset  on 
February  24  France  was  a  Republic.  The  King's 
ministers  were  tolerably  unpopular.  But  then  M. 
Guizot  rather  cultivated  his  unpopularity ;  and  besides 
it  was  one  of  the  advantages  of  constitutional  govern- 
ment that  one's  ministers  could  be  unpopular  without 
imperilling  the  dynasty.  There  was  a  faintly  nauseous 
atmosphere  of  financial  scandal.  But  revelations  have 
always  titillated  rather  than  scandalised  French 
opinion,  and  it  was  hardly  possible  to  govern  a  nation 
with  a  lively  imagination  and  a  peasant  tradition  of 
rapacity  without  giving  cause  for  some  deviation  from 
financial  probity.  The  edifice  of  the  middle-class 
monarchy  was  not  impressive;  but  it  had  an  air  of 
bow-windowed  security  which  seemed  to  promise  an 
indefinite  future.  An  incautious  minister  had  just 
commented  on  the  stillness  of  affairs :  it  was  the  same 
calm  which  deluded  Mr.  Pitt  into  promising  the 
House  of  Commons  fifteen  years  of  peace  six  months 
before  his  country  went  to  twenty-three  years  of  war, 
which  led  Mr.  Hammond  of  the  Foreign  Office  to  ob- 

147 


148  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

serve  to  his  Secretary  of  State  that  there  was  not  a 
cloud  in  the  sky  as  the  black  wrack  of  1870  was 
driving  up  towards  France.  But  the  world  seemed 
very  still  in  France  by  the  grey  light  of  February 
1848.  There  was  peace  in  Europe;  but  its  bless- 
ings are  rarely  appreciated  until  after  an  outbreak 
of  war.  French  opinion  was  a  little  restless.  The 
domestic  felicity  of  an  elderly  King  was  becom- 
ing almost  exasperating  to  a  generation  whose  ap- 
petite for  sensation  had  been  pleasantly  stimulated 
by  the  more  adventurous  morality  of  M.  Eugene 
Sue  and  his  less  remembered  colleagues  of  the 
feuilleton.  A  more  disturbing  taste  for  political 
heresies  had  been  provoked  by  the  almost  simultaneous 
return  of  MM.  Michelet,  Louis  Blanc,  and  Lamartine 
to  the  more  spacious  age  of  the  Revolution  of  1789; 
and  it  was  improbable  that  imaginations  which  were 
playing  round  the  great  gestures  of  the  Convention 
or  the  last  drive  of  the  Girondins  would  derive  any 
lasting  satisfaction  from  the  parliamentary  ingenuity 
of  M.  Guizot.  The  reigning  dynasty  was  beginning 
to  seem  a  trifle  dull;  its  attractions  were  ceasing  to 
appeal  to  an  increasingly  indifferent  public,  and  it 
was  possible  for  Lamartine  to  summarise  the  shrug 
of  a  nation's  shoulders  in  his  bitter  phrase  'la  France 
s'ennuie!  But  revolutions  are  rarely  the  result  of 
boredom,  and  France  in  February  1848  seemed  very 
far  from  revolution.  A  number  of  preposterous 
persons  had  distilled  from  the  tedious  science  of 
political  economy  a  queer  nostrum  called  socialism, 
with  which  they  mystified  their  patient  proletarian 
audiences.  But  their  doctrine  seemed  at  once  too  good 
and  far  too  logical  to  be  true,  and  their  strange  incite- 
ments cast  hardly  a  shadow  on  the  political  scene.  The 


THE  PRESIDENT  149 

centre  of  the  stage  was  held  by  a  more  blameless 
company.  A  number  of  rather  solemn  gentlemen 
who  formed  the  constitutional  Opposition  raised  the 
respectable  banner  of  Reform;  their  impeccable  pro- 
gramme included  an  extension  of  the  franchise  and 
the  exclusion  of  public  servants  from  politics,  and  they 
exploited  with  a  rather  childish  glee  the  British  insti- 
tution of  the  political  dinner.  The  Banquets  Reform- 
istes  were  a  novelty  in  French  political  agitation; 
provincial  caterers  were  delighted  with  enormous 
orders,  and  long  tables  were  spread  in  public  gardens 
at  which  prominent  politicians  gave  sonorous  displays 
of  their  public  virtues.  There  was  a  post-prandial 
alliance  of  Orleanist  radicals  and  the  more  respect- 
able republicans,  and  the  deep  notes  of  M.  Odilon 
Barrot  mingled  with  the  shriller  accents  of  MM. 
Gamier-Pages  and  Ledru-Rollin  in  condemnation 
of  the  existing  government.  It  was  regarded  of- 
ficially as  a  harmless  exercise  until  the  reformers 
proposed  to  conclude  the  series  with  a  monster 
demonstration  in  Paris.  After  a  little  fumbling  the 
function  was  proclaimed  by  the  Government.  It 
was  to  have  been  held  on  February  22.  On  that  morn- 
ing Louis  Philippe  was  still  King  of  the  French :  two 
days  later  France  was  a  Republic. 

The  day  of  the  great  meeting  (it  was  a  Tuesday) 
opened  in  rain  over  Paris.  Soon  after  nine  a  crowd 
began  to  form  outside  the  Madeleine,  and  there  was 
a  little  aimless  singing  under  the  grey  sky.  For  lack 
of  any  better  employment  they  made  a  move  across 
the  Place  de  la  Concorde  and  marched  over  the  river 
to  the  Chamber  of  Deputies.  The  building  was  empty, 
and  a  few  minutes  later  the  Dragoons  trotted  out  of 
the  barracks  on  the  Quai  d'Orsay  and  cleared  the 


150  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

approaches.  The  old  King  was  watching  through 
field-glasses  from  a  window  of  the  Tuileries.  He 
turned  from  the  window  to  his  papers;  and  as  he 
scattered  some  sand  to  dry  a  signature,  he  said  to 
Horace  Vernet,  'Quand  je  voudrai,  cela  se  dispersera 
comme  ceci/  It  seemed  so  on  that  first  morning  of 
the  Revolution.  A  few  windows  were  broken,  and 
there  was  a  little  hooting;  the  crowd  sat  round  the 
fountains  in  the  Place  de  la  Concorde  to  watch  small 
boys  throw  stones  at  the  mounted  police,  and  the 
Deputies  began  to  walk  across  to  the  Chamber.  In 
the  afternoon  the  streets  were  gleaming  with  rain, 
and  there  was  infantry  massed  outside  the  Palais 
Bourbon.  The  Dragoons  sat  their  horses  in  their 
long  grey  cloaks,  and  somewhere  outside  a  cavalry 
band  was  playing  trumpet  marches  in  the  rain. 
Inside  the  Chamber  an  interminable  debate  dragged 
on  about  the  Bank  of  Bordeaux,  and  on  the  great 
square  the  police  were  charging  the  crowd.  There 
was  a  barricade  at  a  corner  of  the  Rue  de  Rivoli, 
and  a  few  shots  were  fired.  That  night  there  was  a 
great  blaze  in  the  Champs  Iillysees,  where  someone 
had  made  a  bonfire  of  all  the  park  chairs,  and  in  the 
late  hours  of  Tuesday,  February  22,  the  troops 
marched  back  to  the  barracks.  Paris  seemed  quiet, 
and  there  was  little  to  show  that  by  Thursday  the 
Orleans  monarchy  would  be  a  memory. 

The  night  was  very  still.  But  on  the  next  morning 
the  town  had  an  air  of  revolution.  The  rioters  were 
entrenching  themselves  in  the  streets,  and  the  paving- 
stones  of  Paris  resumed  their  dismal  duty  on  the 
barricades.  Long  columns  of  cavalry  and  infantry 
were  marching  in  from  the  outlying  barracks,  and 
the  drums  were  beating  to  call  out  the  National 


THE  PRESIDENT  151 

Guard.  The  mobilisation  of  the  middle  class  in  de- 
fence of  its  monarchy  seemed  an  obvious  resource; 
but  by  a  queer  irony  it  proved  fatal.  The  bourgeoisie 
of  Paris  had  made  the  monarchy  in  1830,  and  by  a 
singular  inadvertence  they  unmade  it  in  1848. 
Touched  a  little  by  the  general  indifference  to  the 
King's  difficulties,  they  inclined  to  the  cause  of  Re- 
form. But  as  they  mustered  at  the  Mairies  on  that 
February  morning,  it  was  suggested  to  them  by  some 
queer  inspiration  of  vanity  or  kindliness  that  they 
might  play  a  larger  part,  and  it  became  the  ambition 
of  the  National  Guard  to  keep  the  peace  of  Paris  as 
mediators  between  the  troops  and  the  crowd.  When 
the  harassed  military  moved  against  the  insurrection, 
they  found  that  the  auxiliary  force  had  interposed 
itself  in  the  attitude  (if  with  something  less  than  the 
grace)  of  the  Sabine  women;  and  the  National  Guard, 
which  should  have  been  the  last  police  force  of  the 
monarchy,  melted  into  a  vaguely  cheering  mass  of 
middle-class  politicians.  This  odd  transformation 
paralysed  the  troops  and  startled  the  King.  With  the 
unheroic  gesture  of  a  cautious  man  in  a  hunted  sleigh, 
he  lightened  the  cargo  and  dismissed  Guizot.  The 
old  man  in  his  buttoned  coat  announced  his  resignation 
to  the  Chamber,  and  mounted  police  rode  round  Paris 
in  the  failing  light  of  a  winter  afternoon  with  the 
news  that  Guizot  was  out.  That  day  M.  Victor  Hugo 
was  late  at  the  House  of  Peers  and  went  down  into 
the  town  to  watch  the  crowds.  The  King,  without 
yielding  upon  the  question  of  Reform,  had  summoned 
M.  Mole  to  form  a  cabinet,  and  the  change  of  ministry 
was  entirely  satisfying  to  the  middle-class  deus  ex 
machina  of  the  National  Guard.  The  honest  bour- 
geois returned  home  with  the  proud  consciousness 


152  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

that  they  had  made  history,  and  in  the  better  quarters 
of  the  town  there  were  lights  in  the  windows  and 
cheers  for  the  King.  But  revolutions  are  apt  to  con- 
tinue after  their  promoters  have  been  satisfied  with 
the  rate  of  progress,  and  it  was  always  easier  to  fill 
the  streets  of  Paris  than  to  empty  them.  The  shop- 
keepers might  cheer  for  M.  Mole;  but  there  was  a 
rougher  type  under  arms  behind  the  barricades,  for 
whom  there  was  little  to  distinguish  M.  Mole  from 
M.  Guizot.  A  roaring  mob  paraded  the  roadways 
with  a  vague  taste  for  disorder,  and  the  contented 
bourgeois  took  an  evening  walk  to  watch  them  from 
the  pavement.  The  crowd  went  singing  through 
the  streets  by  torchlight  and  yielded  cheerfully  to  a 
pardonable  impulse  to  break  M.  Guizot's  windows. 
But  a  battalion  of  infantry  barred  the  way.  It  was 
about  half -past  nine  in  the  evening.  The  crowd  was 
friendly  and  cheered  the  troops.  Then,  as  a  rioter  in 
front  of  the  dark  mass  of  the  procession  flourished 
his  torch  in  the  colonel's  face  and  shouted  abuse  at 
him,  a  sergeant  of  infantry  (he  was  a  Corsican)  re- 
sented the  man's  insults  and  shot  him  dead.  The  shot 
broke  the  strained  nerves  of  the  infantry:  and  at  the 
sound,  without  an  order,  they  poured  an  irregular 
volley  into  the  crowd.  The  street  cleared  in  a 
moment;  but  there  were  about  fifty  men  and  women 
on  the  ground.  Somewhere  in  the  town  a  young  man 
named  Flaubert  thought  that  he  heard  firing.  Down 
in  the  street  the  crowd  had  crept  back  to  the  ghastly 
corner,  and  as  they  saw  the  bodies,  there  was  a  great 
cry.  There  had  been  little  in  the  parliamentary 
niceties  of  Reform  to  inflame  a  passion;  but  by  that 
chance  shot  at  a  street  corner  a  demonstration  was 
converted  into  a  revolution.  A  great  open  van  drove 


THE  PRESIDENT  153 

by,  taking  some  emigrants  to  the  Gare  Saint-Lazare. 
It  was  stopped  and  emptied ;  and  when  it  drew  up  in 
the  circle  of  torchlight,  angry  men  piled  the  poor 
bodies  onto  it.  Slowly  the  van  moved  off  through  the 
dark  streets  in  a  glare  of  torches ;  and  as  it  went,  the 
mood  of  Paris  flamed  into  revenge  and  insurrection. 
The  queer  French  aptitude  for  political  funerals  was 
exercised  to  the  utmost,  and  the  last  hope  of  the 
monarchy  went  down  before  that  slow,  heavy  van  in 
the  torchlight.  When  the  news  came  to  the  Tuileries 
late  at  night  that  M.  Mole  was  scared  and  would  not 
take  office,  there  was  no  sleep  at  the  Chateau. 

In  the  dark  hours  of  Thursday,  February  24,  the 
old  King  made  his  last  throw.  Marshal  Bugeaud, 
who  was  a  master  of  street-fighting,  was  appointed 
to  the  command  of  the  troops,  and  a  general  fetched 
M.  Thiers  to  the  Tuileries  at  two  in  the  morning.  He 
was  to  form  a  cabinet  before  sunrise,  and  the  little 
man  spent  a  busy  night  picking  his  way  over  the 
barricades  to  visit  sleepy  statesmen.  The  bells  were 
chiming  in  the  church  towers  as  the  dawn  broke,  and 
men  were  forcing  the  shutters  of  gun-makers'  shops 
to  arm  themselves.  In  the  early  light  the  new  minis- 
ters mustered  at  the  Tuileries.  Their  master  was 
uneasy,  and  in  the  streets  outside  the  rioters  were 
manning  the  barricades.  The  troops  had  been  thrust 
out  of  Paris  in  long  columns;  but  it  was  hoped  that 
there  would  be  no  fighting  if  they  could  spread  the 
news  that  MM.  Thiers  and  Odilon  Barrot  were  in 
office  and  the  King  would  grant  Reform.  M.  Barrot 
even  rode  through  the  streets  to  announce  his  own 
appointment;  but  somehow  the  rare  spectacle  of  a 
middle-aged  politician  on  horseback  failed  to  rouse 
enthusiasm.  At  the  Tuileries  there  was  a  dismal 


154  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

coming  and  going  of  statesmen  with  good  advice  and 
soldiers  with  bad  news.  The  troops  were  falling  back 
on  the  palace  and  had  lost  their  guns ;  a  great  crowd 
on  the  march  through  the  streets  had  halted  in  the 
Place  Vendome  to  present  arms  to  the  Colonne  de  la 
Grande  Armee  and  to  send  up  a  roar  of  (Vive 
I'Empereur!'  M.  Thiers  was  muttering  'la  maree 
monte,  monte'  and  urging  his  master  to  leave  Paris 
until  the  civil  war  was  over.  The  King  had  ordered 
his  carriages  for  Vincennes,  when  he  decided  to  review 
his  forces  in  the  Place  du  Carrousel.  Slowly  the  old 
man  rode  out  of  the  palace  in  the  uniform  of  the 
National  Guard,  with  M.  Thiers  walking  at  his  horse's 
head.  As  he  passed  along  the  ranks,  the  cheers 
turned  to  shouts  for  Reform ;  and  as  the  King  caught 
the  new  tone  of  his  faithful  bourgeois,  his  nerve  gave 
way;  he  was  seventy-four  and  it  was  a  wild  morning. 
The  National  Guard  had  been  the  praetorians,  the 
janissaries  to  the  Orleans  monarchy;  and  as  they 
broke  their  ranks  to  shout  with  the  mob,  it  seemed 
that  the  reign  was  over.  The  old  man  turned  his 
horse  sharply  and  entered  the  Tuileries  for  the  last 
time.  There  was  a  hurried  debate,  as  a  mob  surged 
towards  the  palace,  and  the  sharp  sound  of  firing 
could  be  heard  in  the  room.  Then  Louis  Philippe 
abdicated  in  favour  of  his  grandson  and  drove  away 
into  exile  up  the  long  hill  past  the  Arc  de  Triomphe. 
In  its  final  phase  the  Revolution  of  1848  was  staged 
in  the  Chamber.  By  the  act  of  abdication  a  boy  of 
nine  was  King  of  the  French,  and  his  mother  became 
Regent.  It  was  a  dramatic  gesture  to  present  the 
young  widow  and  her  child  to  the  chivalry  of  the 
Parliament;  and  as  the  people  made  free  with  the 
deserted  palace,  a  little  party  walked  across  to  the 


THE  PRESIDENT  155 

Chamber  of  Deputies.  A  confused  session  was  in 
progress,  and  the  Duchess  of  Orleans  made  an  appeal- 
ing entrance  with  her  two  boys.  But  before  the 
Chamber  could  take  a  decision,  there  was  a  roar  at 
the  doors,  and  the  mob  surged  across  the  floor  of  the 
House.  M.  de  Lamartine  proposed  the  appointment 
of  a  Provisional  Government,  and  the  Regency  was 
at  an  end.  Crowds  swept  into  the  Chamber,  and  the 
five  gentlemen  of  the  Provisional  Government  went 
off  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville  to  govern  France.  Some- 
one in  the  Tuileries  was  playing  the  Marseillaise  on 
the  Queen's  piano,  and  M.  de  Balzac  was  exploring 
the  palace.  Outside  in  the  street  an  excited  gentle- 
man named  Baudelaire  was  waving  a  gun  and  shout- 
ing, and  all  Paris  was  roaring  with  the  intoxication 
of  a  successful  riot.  The  bourgeois  with  a  singular 
inadvertence  had  made  possible  a  revolution  which 
they  did  not  require,  and  by  a  sudden  turn  France 
was  swept  into  the  Second  Republic. 


II 

WHILST  Paris  was  striking  republican  attitudes, 
France  and  the  world  looked  on  with  mild  surprise. 
The  old  King  lay  for  a  night  at  Dreux  and  posted 
on  into  Normandy  towards  the  coast.  Behind  him 
in  Paris  a  committee  of  public  speakers  and  literary 
men  was  improvising  a  republic  and  conducting  the 
business  of  government  before  cheering  audiences. 
There  was  an  outburst  of  sentimental  allegory  in  the 
printsellers'  shops,  and  engravers  luxuriated  in  the 
upturned  eyes  of  virtuous  soldiers  and  workmen  or 
a  symbolic  profusion  of  broken  chains,  wings,  light- 
ning, and  lions  harnessed  to  chariots ;  sometimes  there 
was  even  a  queer  intrusion  of  Christian  imagery 
amongst  the  Phrygian  caps  and  masonic  symbols  of 
orthodox  republican  art.  The  streets  slowly  emptied, 
and  men  who  had  shouldered  a  musket  on  the  Trots 
Glorieuses  of  February  began,  as  the  echoes  died 
away,  to  make  small  jokes  about ' Louis  file-vite'  or  to 
sing  little  songs  about  the  end  of  the  reign : 

'Philippe  s'desespere; 
Mironton,  mironton,  mirontaine. 
II  part  pour  I'Angleterre, 
Ne  salt  quand  reviendra.' 

At  the  Hotel  de  Ville  ten  harassed  gentlemen  and 
an  inarticulate  workman  were  sketching  a  new  world 
with  large,  free  strokes.  It  was  inaugurated  under 
the  best  literary  auspices,  and  Lamartine  was  to  be 

156 


THE  PRESIDENT  157 

seen  in  the  recesses  of  a  window  offering  to  Victor 
Hugo  the  portfolio  of  Public  Instruction.  Universal 
suffrage  was  re-established,  and  the  needs  of  labour 
were  met  (and  the  exigencies  of  economics  defied) 
by  the  guarantee  of  work  for  all  and  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Ateliers  Nationaux.  Projects  of  better- 
ment pullulated,  and  some  one  proposed  the 
establishment  of  a  Ministry  of  Progress:  it  was  a 
happy  anticipation  of  the  administrative  method  for 
the  solution  of  any  problem  by  the  formation  of  a 
Ministry  of  it,  which  was  subsequently  adopted  in 
almost  every  country  under  pressure  of  war. 

The  news  from  Paris  sent  a  quiver  through  Europe. 
Italy  began  to  stir  uneasily  in  the  grasp  of  Austria; 
South  German  Liberals  held  strange  language  to 
their  masters;  democracy  alarmed  the  Cardinals  by 
returning  to  its  birthplace  in  Rome ;  there  were  barri- 
cades in  the  streets  of  Berlin,  and  the  King  of  Prussia 
went  riding  down  the  Linden  hawking  his  new  princi- 
ples to  the  passers-by;  the  Viennese  swept  into  the 
dance,  there  was  a  little  shooting  at  the  Hofburg, 
and  Metternich  was  hounded  out  of  office;  even  the 
Spaniards  took  the  contagion,  and  there  was  a  faint 
movement  in  the  calm  air  of  Madrid.  Queen  Victoria 
and  her  correspondents  spent  themselves  in  a  feverish 
outpouring  of  exclamations  and  underlinings  on  the 
subject  of  'these  awful,  sad,  heart-breaking  times'  and 
such  'an  awful,  overwhelming,  unexpected  and  inex- 
plicable catastrophe'  But  the  news  found  a  more 
favourable  reception  in  King  Street,  St.  James's, 
where  Prince  Louis'  carriage  waited  at  his  door  and 
the  twopenny  post  began  to  bring  a  steady  stream  of 
letters  from  France.  One  night,  before  the  old  King 
had  been  forty-eight  hours  on  the  road  out  of  Paris, 


158  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

the  Prince  sat  talking  to  his  Italian  banker  after 
twelve.  Early  the  next  morning  Louis  Napoleon  left 
London  by  the  train  for  Dover,  and  about  midday  on 
February  27,  1848,  the  pretender  was  once  more  on 
French  territory.  He  landed  with  his  face  in  a  muffler 
and  (since  he  had  no  luggage)  made  a  rapid  passage 
through  the  Douane.  Like  most  travellers,  he  lunched 
as  the  train  stood  in  the  station.  At  Amiens  there 
was  a  long  wait,  and  the  station  rang  with  the  shouts 
of  a  queer  party  of  released  convicts.  The  train 
went  on,  and  the  Prince  was  exasperated  by  a  conver- 
sational traveller.  Somehow  the  long  journey  drew 
to  an  end,  and  on  the  next  morning  Prince  Louis 
drove  into  Paris.  They  were  restoring  the  roads  and 
taking  the  paving-stones  off  the  barricades,  and  some- 
one asked  him  to  lend  a  hand.  'My  good  woman, 
he  answered,  'that  is  just  what  I  have  come  to 
Paris  for.' 

The  arrival  of  a  Bonaparte  four  days  after  the 
disappearance  of  Louis  Philippe  was  a  matter  of 
some  interest.  King  Jerome  had  been  in  Paris  before 
the  Revolution;  but  neither  he  nor  his  son  were  per- 
sons of  any  popular  importance.  Louis  Napoleon 
was  a  more  sensational  figure,  and  after  midnight  he 
sent  Persigny  to  the  Provisional  Government  with  a 
letter  announcing  his  arrival  fsans  autre  ambition  que 
celle  de  servir  mon  pays'  The  Government,  which 
had  no  desire  to  see  a  pretender  added  to  its  troubles, 
requested  him  to  leave  the  country  in  twenty-four 
hours;  and  the  Prince,  having  made  known  his  exis- 
tence, withdrew  'for  the  moment.'  He  went  from 
Boulogne  by  the  Lord  Warden  steam  packet  and 
landed  at  Folkstone  about  the  time  that  Louis 
Philippe,  shaved,  disguised,  and  without  his  wig,  was 


THE  PRESIDENT  159 

making  a  wretched  arrival  at  Newhaven  with  his 
thin- faced  Queen  under  the  unimpressive  designation 
of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Smith,  uncle  and  aunt  of  the  British 
consul  at  Havre. 

As  the  Orleans  family  gathered  in  exile  at  Clare- 
mont  to  receive  the  solicitous  inquiries  of  Prince 
Albert,  Louis  Napoleon  returned  to  King  Street. 
But  his  attention  was  distracted  from  the  turf  to 
the  larger  speculation  of  the  Second  Republic.  M.  de 
Lamartine  and  his  divergent  collaborators  were 
struggling  with  a  proletariat  which  was  too  excited 
to  work  and  a  bourgeoisie  which  was  too  indifferent  to 
moderate  it.  The  public  service  was  recruited  from 
the  ranks  of  the  agitators,  and  it  grew  in  consequence 
more  voluble  than  orderly.  A  young  man  named 
^mile  Ollivier  represented  the  Republic  in  the  south. 
Life  in  Paris  became  a  succession  of  demonstrations, 
and  in  the  disorders  the  cry  of  'Five  I'Empereur!' 
began  to  be  heard  in  the  streets;  Persigny  had  re- 
mained in  France  and,  although  the  caricatures  of 
the  day  exhibited  a  marked  distaste  for  pretenders 
with  eagles,  a  small  Bonapartist  committee  was 
formed  which  included  Montholon  and  one  or  two 
more  of  the  army  of  Boulogne,  the  Corsican  Pietri, 
some  stockbrokers,  and  the  faithful  contralto  of  Stras- 
burg.  The  Provisional  Government  struggled 
through  the  spring,  whilst  the  wind  of  the  Revolution 
was  sweeping  Europe ;  and  the  Prince  in  London  was 
sworn  in  at  Marlborough  Street  Police  Station  as  a 
special  constable  to  stand  between  British  society  and 
the  menace  of  the  Chartists.  He  carried  a  truncheon 
for  Queen  Victoria  on  a  beat  in  Piccadilly  between 
Park  Lane  and  Dover  Street  and  was  heard  to  say 
that  'the  peace  of  London  must  be  preserved.'  It 


160  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

was  a  queer  gesture  for  a  foreign  prince  who  was 
beginning  to  attain  some  reputation  among  the  repub- 
licans of  his  own  country.  But  a  gentleman  who 
kept  his  horses  and  lived  in  King  Street  was  expected 
to  attest;  and  besides  it  was  the  Bonaparte  tradition 
to  keep  order  in  revolutions. 

Two  weeks  later  France  went  to  the  polls  for  the 
election  of  a  National  Assembly.  The  Prince,  who 
had  taken  competent  advice,  was  not  a  candidate; 
but  two  of  his  cousins  were  elected  in  Corsica,  and 
Vaudrey  and  Persigny  were  defeated  in  the  provinces 
after  prodigious  professions  of  their  republican  con- 
victions. The  mood  of  the  country  was  becoming 
steadily  more  favourable  to  any  name  which  embodied 
the  idea  of  order,  and  the  increasing  cries  of  'Vive 
Napoleon!'  in  the  Paris  streets  expressed  a  growing 
distaste  for  government  by  processions.  The  Pro- 
visional Government  had  been  an  experiment  in  dic- 
tatorship; but  its  history  had  disclosed  a  singular 
failure  to  dictate.  A  crowd,  which  began  as  a 
demonstration  in  favour  of  the  Polish  insurrection, 
had  rushed  the  Chamber  in  May ;  there  were  a  hundred 
thousand  workmen  in  Paris  ploughing  the  sand  in 
the  Ateliers  Nationaux;  and  M.  de  Lamartine  made 
speeches  to  the  gathering  storm.  It  was  small  wonder 
that  the  propaganda  of  Bonapartism  began  to  raise 
its  head,  and  the  world  grew  familiar  with  engravings 
of  rLes  Troix  Neveux  du  Grand  Homme'  and  of 
Prince  Louis  himself  (with  the  invariable  super- 
scription 'ne  a  Paris'  to  correct  the  malicious  misstate- 
ment  that  he  was  a  Swiss) .  By  a  strange  irony,  just 
as  his  name  began  to  gather  force  as  a  symbol  of 
order,  the  crude  economics  of  his  pamphlet  on  un- 
employment won  for  him  a  considerable  popularity 


THE  PRESIDENT  161 

in  the  stormy  world  of  socialism ;  and  the  young  man 
in  King  Street  simultaneously  became  the  rising  hope 
of  the  harassed  bourgeois  and  the  theatening  prole- 
tariat. It  was  an  odd  position  for  one  of  Lord  John 
Russell's  special  constables. 

In  the  last  week  of  May  he  made  a  serious  move 
into  French  politics.  When  the  Chamber  was  de- 
bating the  exile  of  the  dethroned  dynasties,  he  wrote 
an  indignant  letter  to  the  President  demanding  his 
rights  as  a  French  citizen ;  and  his  friends  had  already 
taken  drastic  steps  to  enforce  them  by  a  vigorous 
candidature  opened  in  his  name  at  the  by-elections 
which  were  to  take  place  early  in  June.  Whilst  M. 
Pietri  was  moving  that  the  Chamber  should  revoke 
the  banishment  of  the  Bonapartes  and  the  Govern- 
ment was  agreeing  in  the  most  generous  terms,  a 
handful  of  workers,  canvassers  and  billposters  by 
turns,  were  covering  the  town  with  hand-bills,  small 
posters,  and  brass  medals  detailing  the  virtues,  the 
credentials,  the  sufferings,  the  principles  of  Louis 
Napoleon  Bonaparte,  author  of  the  Extinction  du 
Pauperisme.  Persigny,  Laity  and  a  financial  gentle- 
man named  Ferrere  walked  the  streets  all  day,  listen- 
ing to  arguments  at  street  corners,  distributing 
portraits  of  the  Prince,  and  leaving  small  bills  in  cafes 
and  at  tobacconists.  The  Bonapartist  committee 
worked  desperately ;  street  musicians  were  even  hired 
to  give  a  Napoleonic  turn  to  their  performances  and 
prophetic  sleepwalkers  murmured  the  Prince's  name. 
A  great  crowd  waited  outside  the  Hotel  de  Ville  to 
hear  the  results.  The  Prince  was  in,  and  the  hats 
went  up  with  a  great  cheer.  Louis  Napoleon  had 
arrived,  in  June  1848,  at  his  first  public  position  in 
France;  he  was  a  Deputy  for  Paris. 


162  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

By  that  queer  pluralism  which  is  possible  in  French 
elections,  he  was  returned  by  the  Departments  of 
the  Seine,  Corsica,  the  Yonne,  and  the  Charente- 
Inferieure.  An  excited  meeting  of  workmen  sent 
a  petition  to  the  Assembly  demanding  that  he  should 
be  made  First  Consul;  one  district  offered  him  a 
colonelcy  in  the  National  Guard;  and  in  the  prov- 
inces he  was  regarded  without  affectation  as  a  future 
Emperor.  In  Paris  there  was  a  steady  increase  of 
excitement.  The  elections  had  been  held  on  a  Sunday, 
and  the  results  were  known  during  the  following  week. 
On  the  Saturday,  when  the  Prince  might  take  his  seat, 
a  great  crowd  waited  on  the  Place  de  la  Concorde 
and  the  Chamber  was  guarded  by  three  regiments  of 
infantry.  That  night  the  Government  circulated  to 
all  Prefets  and  Sous-prefets  a  police  description  of 
the  Prince  with  orders  for  his  immediate  arrest. 
Louis  Napoleon  stayed  quietly  in  King  Street,  walk- 
ing across  after  dinner  to  a  paper  shop  by  the  Burling- 
ton Arcade  for  the  last  news  from  Paris.  But  every 
evening  there  were  Bonapartist  meetings  on  the 
boulevards,  and  the  camelots  hawked  him  in  profile, 
full-face,  or  in  pamphlet  form  as  M.  de  Persigny  took 
the  air  after  his  dinner  at  the  Cafe  de  Paris  and 
listened  to  the  talk  of  the  streets.  There  was  a  spate 
of  little  papers  with  cuts  of  the  Emperor  and  his 
nephew,  echoing  with  prophecies  from  St.  Helena  and 
voices  from  the  dungeons  of  Ham,  reporting  the 
soliloquies  of  Napoleon  on  his  column  in  the  Place 
Vendome  or  in  the  great  sarcophagus  at  the  Invalides. 
On  June  12  there  was  almost  a  Bonapartist  journee. 
Crowds  paraded  the  streets  all  day  shouting  'Vive 
Napoleon!'  and  the  Place  de  la  Concorde  was  full 
of  men  selling  little  tricolour  flags  seditiously  in- 


THE  PRESIDENT  163 

scribed  'Vive  le  prince  Louis!'  The  old  soldiers  and 
the  workmen  seemed  to  have  joined  the  enemies  of  the 
Republic.  The  republicans  took  fright  and  called  out 
the  National  Guard.  There  was  an  obscure  scuffle 
in  the  great  square  outside,  and  with  the  sound  of 
drums  rolling  through  the  Chamber  Lamartine  moved 
that  Prince  Louis  should  remain  in  exile.  At  the 
same  time  Persigny  and  Laity  were  arrested,  and 
the  state  was  saved  by  its  rather  self-conscious  consuls. 
On  the  next  day,  with  a  delightful  lack  of  consistency, 
the  Assembly  ratified  the  Prince's  election  on  sound 
democratic  principles.  The  rioting  continued,  and 
there  were  great  crowds  in  the  centre  of  Paris.  Shouts 
of  'Vive  — poleon!'  drifted  into  the  Chamber  as  M. 
Jules  Favre  was  justifying  the  election,  and  men  wore 
little  eagles  in  their  hats.  The  police  were  hustled, 
and  someone  began  a  barricade  at  the  fashionable 
corner  of  the  Rue  Castiglione  and  the  Rue  du  Mont- 
Thabor.  But  the  Prince  was  a  cleverer  tactician  than 
the  rioters,  and  on  the  next  day  he  asked  the  President 
for  leave  of  absence.  His  letter  to  the  Assembly  ex- 
pressed a  dignified  regret  for  the  disturbances  of 
which  he  had  been  indirectly  the  cause.  But  it  con- 
tained the  ominous  phrase  which  scandalised  repub- 
lican opinion: 

'Si  le  peuple  m'impose  des  devoirs,  je  saurai  leg  rempl:r; 
mats  je  desavoue  tons  ceux  qui  me  preteraient  des  in- 
tentions ambitieuses  que  je  n'ai  pas.  Mon  nom  est  un 
symbols  d'ordre,  de  nationality  et  de  gloire.  .  .  .' 

The  protest  of  the  Chamber  was  immediate  and 
violent;  and  when  the  news  reached  London,  Louis 
showed  his  skill  with  an  immediate  resignation  of 
his  seat.  With  a  rare  mastery  of  himself  he  chose 


164  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

to  wait,  like  a  cautious  fencer,  for  a  better  moment. 
It  was  preferable,  in  the  suspicious  mood  of  French 
opinion,  to  remain  for  a  short  time  the  Prince  over 
the  water,  hoped  for  and  half  seen;  and  the  new 
idol  of  the  Paris  streets  stayed  in  St.  James's,  whilst 
his  virtues  were  celebrated  in  pamphlets  and  medals, 
by  old  soldiers  and  young  workmen,  in  Paris  and 
across  the  provinces.  The  papers  (he  had  no  regular 
press)  might  affect  to  regard  him  as  a  stupid  young 
man  from  Switzerland  who  wore  his  uncle's  uniforms 
and  was  habitually  accompanied  by  an  eagle.  But 
the  elections  of  June  had  made  him  a  figure  in  French 
politics.  Men  had  heard  the  name  of  Napoleon 
spoken  loudly;  and  when  the  moment  came,  they 
would  not  easily  forget  it. 

The  spring  disorders  deepened,  as  the  year  drew 
on,  into  the  flaming  horror  of  civil  war.  The  facile 
expedient  of  the  Ateliers  National^  had  concentrated 
in  Paris  an  army  of  117,000  workmen  at  a  daily  cost 
to  the  state  of  170,000  francs,  and  an  attempt  to 
demobilise  this  force  sent  the  workers  to  the  barri- 
cades in  a  desperate  attempt  to  substitute  the 
Republique  sociale  for  the  parliamentary  Republic 
of  1848.  The  men  were  starving,  and  they  fought 
without  hope,  without  leaders,  without  cheers,  shoot- 
ing sullenly  in  a  dreadful  silence  behind  great 
barricades  of  stone.  For  four  days  Paris  was  alight 
with  the  dull  glow;  guns  were  brought  up  against 
the  barricades;  a  great  storm  broke  over  the  smok- 
ing town;  women  were  shot  without  pity,  and  on  a 
ghastly  Sunday  a  general  in  parley  with  the  barricades 
was  shamefully  murdered;  the  Archbishop  of  Paris, 
with  a  supreme  gesture  of  reconciliation,  went  out  at 
sunset  to  make  peace  and  was  shot  and  died.  It 


THE  PRESIDENT  165 

was  a  time  of  horror,  and  for  four  summer  days  Paris 
was  tortured  by  the  struggle.  Then  the  rebellion 
broke,  and  the  Republic  survived.  But  in  the  servile" 
war  it  had  changed  its  character :  during  the  struggle 
France  had  found  a  dictator,  since  the  Assembly 
within  sound  of  the  guns  had  turned  from  the  Pro- 
visional Government  with  a  terrified  gesture  and 
handed  every  power  of  the  executive  to  the  Minister 
of  War.  General  Cavaignac  was  one  of  those  rare 
soldiers  who  manage  to  remain  soldierly  in  politics. 
The  martial  virtues  of  taciturnity  and  decision  rarely 
survive  the  change  of  occupation,  and  military  men 
in  civil  affairs  are  too  often  garrulous  and  irresolute. 
But  Cavaignac  had  learnt  silence  to  the  north  of  the 
Sahara,  and  he  retained  in  the  Chamber  the  gaunt 
air,  the  strong  will,  the  staccato  utterance  of  an 
Algerian  general.  Coming  of  a  republican  family, 
he  regarded  the  Second  Republic  with  an  affection 
that  varied  between  religion  and  pedantry ;  and  when 
he  was  called  to  save  the  state  in  the  June  days  of 
1848,  he  saved  it  without  swerving,  without  ambition, 
a  little  fiercely.  His  iron  repression  of  the  rebellion, 
the  stern  employment  of  military  methods  and  martial 
law  followed  by  the  classical  gesture  of  divesting 
himself  of  all  power  when  the  work  was  done,  made 
a  picture  that  was  full  of  republican  reminiscences  of 
Camillus  on  his  farm,  of  Washington  at  Mount  Ver- 
non.  The  Assembly  replied  by  retaining  him  in  office, 
and  France  was  dominated  by  the  gaunt  figure  of  the 
republican  soldier  who  had  crushed  the  social 
revolution. 

As  the  echoes  died  away,  the  wise  men  of  the 
Chamber  began  to  draft  a  constitution  for  the  Re- 
public, and  France  returned  to  work.  Paris  had  still 


166  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

a  strange  air;  there  were  Dragoons  in  the  Champ 
filysees,  and  the  sudden  sound  of  trains  at  the  Gare 
du  Nord  brought  nervous  citizens  to  their  doors.  The 
country  was  governed  with  military  precision,  and 
Cavaignac  distributed  punishment  and  multiplied 
his  enemies  with  the  strict  impartiality  of  an  honest 
man.  But  republican  austerity  is  sometimes  a  little 
trying;  and  the  country,  although  it  had  called  for  a 
man  after  the  confused  experiment  of  government  by 
committee,  began  to  wonder  whether  there  was  not 
perhaps  another  man.  Men  had  heard  the  name 
of  Napoleon  earlier  in  the  year.  It  had  been  shouted 
then  across  the  Paris  streets  by  a  rather  disorderly 
element.  But  after  the  insurrection  of  June  and  a 
dismal  summer  spent  in  the  heavy  grasp  of  General 
Cavaignac  the  old  name  began  rapidly  to  make  new 
friends.  To  the  orderly  classes  it  seemed  to  promise 
(as  it  had  once  performed)  the  reorganisation  of 
France  after  revolution ;  the  workers  saw  in  it  a  hope 
of  escape  from  the  General  and  his  martial  law ;  and 
in  the  broad  fields,  where  the  Emperor  had  never  been 
forgotten,  the  sound  of  it  made  countrymen  think 
that  he  was  still  alive.  There  was  to  be  a  fresh  series 
of  by-elections  for  the  Chamber  in  the  autumn,  and 
the  propaganda  of  Bonapartism  was  vigorously  re- 
sumed. The  Prince  announced  his  re-entry  into 
politics  in  a  skilful  letter,  and  his  friends  in  France 
returned  energetically  to  the  organisation  of  opinion. 
Letters  were  sent  from  London  to  men  of  influence, 
and  his  posters  began  to  appear  on  the  walls.  Mont- 
holon  pleaded  his  cause  in  print,  and  every  class  was 
invited  to  rally,  according  to  its  tastes,  to  his 
democracy,  his  love  of  order,  or  his  incipient  socialism. 
He  even  had  a  mysterious  interview  with  Louis  Blanc 


THE  PRESIDENT  167 

at  a  hotel  in  Leicester  Square ;  and  by  a  skilful  turn 
of  his  political  facets  towards  every  class  of  elector 
he  was  returned  once  more  to  the  National  Assembly. 
On  September  17  Louis  Napoleon  was  elected  Deputy 
for  Paris,  Corsica,  the  Yonne,  the  Charente-Inferieure 
and  the  Moselle ;  and  when  the  results  were  announced 
at  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  a  prophetic  bugle-band  played 
the  old  official  anthem  Vettlons  au  salut  de  I* Empire: 
it  was  a  just  comment. 

The  Assembly  was  disinclined  to  exclude  a  Deputy 
who  had  been  twice  elected,  and  eight  days  after 
the  poll  M.  Louis  Bonaparte  took  his  seat.  There 
was  a  great  turning  of  heads  towards  one  of  the 
benches  of  the  Left,  and  the  President  took  up  his 
opera-glasses  to  stare:  he  saw  a  small  man  dressed 
in  black  with  a  heavy  moustache.  A  little  later  the 
new  member  rose  to  speak.  Since  he  disliked  the 
tribune  (he  had  condemned  it  for  its  dramatic  possi- 
bilities in  an  article  written  at  Ham),  he  was  about 
to  speak,  in  the  English  fashion,  from  his  place.  But 
the  Chamber  valued  its  stage  effects,  and  he  was 
hurried  up  the  steps  with  cries  of  'A  la  tribune!  a  la 
tribune!'  In  a  still  House  he  read  a  short  speech 
declaring  his  devotion  to  the  Republic;  and  as  he 
slipped  out  into  the  lobby,  someone  introduced  him 
to  a  dapper  military  gentleman  in  a  brown  wig  named 
Changarnier  whom  he  was  to  know  better. 

In  the  weeks  which  followed  the  Prince  frankly 
became  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  since  the  new 
Constitution  included  a  President  on  the  American 
model.  He  was  rarely  in  his  place  at  the  Chamber; 
and  when  he  went,  he  took  a  revolver  in  his  pocket; 
but  he  was  busy  finding  a  way  into  the  world  of 
politics.  He  took  a  suite  at  the  Hotel  du  Rhin,  with 


168  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

a  view  of  the  Emperor  on  his  Column,  and  there  was 
always  a  crowd  round  the  door  in  the  Place  Vendome 
to  see  him.  Old  soldiers  waited  for  a  glimpse  of  the 
Emperor's  nephew,  and  the  world  made  little  jokes 
at  the  gaunt  old  men  who  cocked  their  hats  and  wore 
tight,  buttoned  coats.  Daumier  modelled  the  type, 
threadbare  and  lean  and  swaggering  with  a  great 
stick,  and  called  it  Ratapoil.  Cham  poked  exquisite 
fun  at  it  in  the  Charivari.  But  the  crowds  in  the 
Place  Vendome  grew  larger;  and  inside  a  short  man 
with  dull  eyes  was  receiving  his  callers.  He  stooped 
a  little,  and  he  had  the  thin  legs  of  an  ostler ;  London 
had  done  much  for  his  clothes,  but  once  at  least  with 
a  strange  lapse  (or  an  ill-timed  reminiscence  of  Mr. 
Disraeli)  he  startled  a  visitor  with  a  green  plush 
waistcoat  and  trousers  that  were  distinctly  yellow.  In 
the  morning  he  rode  in  the  Bois,  and  in  the  evenings 
he  received  at  his  hotel  or  was  seen  in  drawing-rooms. 
Sometimes  he  gave  dinner  to  a  journalist,  and  once 
he  met  Proudhon,  the  Pope  of  contemporary  social- 
ism. M.  Odilon  Barrot  took  him  out  in  November  to 
dine  in  the  country,  and  before  dinner  they  went  over 
to  Malmaison.  There  was  a  little  difficulty  at  the 
gate ;  but  the  porter  yielded  to  the  Emperor's  nephew, 
and  they  saw  the  old  rooms,  the  old  furniture,  even 
a  little  chair  that  he  remembered. 

Through  the  autumn  the  Chamber  was  debating 
the  new  Constitution,  and  it  paid  to  the  Prince  the 
compliment  of  an  extreme  anxiety  as  to  the  powers 
of  the  President.  Once  he  was  forced  to  speak  by 
an  amendment  to  exclude  from  office  all  royal  and 
Imperial  families.  The  house  was  excited,  and  Louis 
Napoleon  was  unprepared.  He  spoke  badly,  with 
pauses  and  in  sentences  which  did  not  end.  But  his 


THE  PRESIDENT  169 

halting  denial  of  sinister  designs  sufficed  to  defeat  the 
proposal  and  to  convince  an  Assembly  which  always 
measured  ability  by  eloquence  that  the  Republic  had 
little  to  fear  from  this  inarticulate  young  man  with  a 
foreign  accent.  He  had  learnt  to  be  silent  in  his 
rooms  at  Ham  and  in  the  cold  drawing-rooms  of  Lon- 
don, and  parliaments  are  rarely  captivated  by  silent 
men.  It  became  the  fashion  to  treat  him  as  a  faintly 
comic  figure ;  his  career  as  an  opera  bouffe  pretender, 
his  docile  attendance  on  his  adviser,  M.  Vieillard,  his 
inability  to  speak,  set  the  lobbies  tittering;  and  his 
eagle,  his  uncle's  hat,  his  English  constable's  trun- 
cheon became  a  blessing  to  caricaturists.  But  the  ris- 
ing tide  of  Bonapartism  was  unaffected.  The  salons 
might  raise  a  polite  laugh  with  the  story  of  his  accent 
or  lift  an  eyebrow  at  the  ffils  d'Hortense*  But  down 
in  Paris  crowded  meetings  were  cheering  loud-voiced 
men  as  they  perorated  confusedly  on  his  sufferings  in 
prison,  his  burning  patriotism,  his  melting  pity  for 
the  people.  The  provinces  were  frankly  Imperialist, 
and  the  rococo  eloquence  of  countless  local  papers 
answered  the  scorn  of  the  clever  gentlemen  up  in 
Paris  who  multiplied  little  jokes  about 

'un  faux  Napoleon 
Qu'on  met  en  circulation.' 

There  was  a  vigorous  campaign  of  Bonapartist  sheets 
financed  by  his  friends,  by  the  sale  of  his  establish- 
ment in  King  Street,  by  unknown  soldiers  of  the 
Grande  Armee.  Gradually  as  the  crowds  in  the 
streets  sang: 

'Nous  I'aurons, 
Nous  I'aurons, 
poleon!' 


170  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

the  politicians  began  to  feel  the  infection.  M.  Berryer 
sank  his  loyalty  to  the  Bourbons  in  support  of  a 
Bonaparte  interregnum;  M.  Guizot  did  the  same; 
Marshal  Bugeaud  saw  a  possibility  of  order  in  the 
Presidency  of  the  Prince ;  M.  Thiers  saw  a  possibility 
of  office.  Late  in  October  he  even  recovered  some- 
thing of  a  position  in  the  Chamber  by  a  dignified 
defence  of  his  own  candidature: 

'Eh  bien!  out,  je  I'accepte,  cette  candidature,  parce  que 
trots  elections  successives  et  le  decret  unanime  de  I'Assem- 
blee  nationale  contre  la  proscription  de  ma  famille 
m'autorisent  a  croire  que  la  France  regarde  mon  nom 
comme  pouvant  servir  a  la  consolidation  de  la  societe.  .  .  . 
Ce  qu'il  lui  faut,  c'est  un  gouvernement  ferme,  intelligent 
et  sage,  qui  pense  plus  a  guerir  les  maux  de  la  societe  qu'a 
les  venger.' 

The  young  man  was  beginning  to  take  a  sound  tone, 
and  his  elderly  preceptors  redoubled  their  good  advice. 
M.  Thiers  even  suggested,  after  consultation  with 
M.  Mole,  that  he  should  shave  his  moustache  for  the 
election:  it  was  felt  (since  they  were  both  clean- 
shaven) that  Presidents  should  not  wear  moustaches. 
As  the  day  came  nearer  the  Prince  published  his 
manifesto.  It  spoke  of  the  defence  of  society  and 
removal  of  taxes.  Foreign  policy  was  to  be  peaceful 
but  firm  (fUne  grande  nation  doit  se  taire  ou  ne 
jamais  parler  en  vain3) ;  it  might  even  be  possible  to 
reduce  the  burden  of  military  service.  The  conclusion 
had  a  restrained  eloquence: 

'D'ailleurs,  quand  on  a  I'honneur  d'etre  a  la  tete  du 
peuple  frangais,  il  y  a  un  moyen  infaillible  de  faire  le 
bien,  c'est  de  le  vouloir.' 


THE  PRESIDENT  171 

The  Prince  stood  upon  one  side.  Against  him 
on  the  other  (there  were  other  candidates,  but  they 
barely  signified)  was  General  Cavaignac.  He  had 
won  a  great  victory  in  June ;  but  men  could  not  forget 
that  he  had  won  it  over  Frenchmen.  The  agony  of 
the  barricades  was  recorded  in  the  tortured  perspec- 
tive and  hectic  colouring  of  popular  prints,  and 
France  had  no  wish  to  see  a  perpetual  reminder  of  it 
in  the  President's  chair.  His  honest  figure  had  be- 
come almost  forbidding,  and  his  republican  virtue 
received,  as  it  had  merited,  the  reward  of  Aristides. 
On  December  10,  1848,  Louis  Napoleon  was  elected 
by  a  majority  of  four  millions  in  a  poll  of  seven 
millions,  and  the  strange  figure  whom  the  world 
addressed  indifferently  as  Prince,  Altesse,  Monsieur, 
Monseigneur,  and  Citoyen  was  President  of  the 
French  Republic. 


Ill 


FRANCE  had  a  new  master;  but  the  statesmen  were 
too  clever  to  know  it.  Little  M.  Thiers  tittered  dis- 
creetly about  'noire  jeune  homme/  and  Lord  John 
Russell  sagely  informed  his  sovereign  that  'Bonaparte 
may  probably  play  the  part  of  Richard  Cromwell' 
and  clear  the  stage  for  a  more  sober  Restoration  of 
the  dear  good  Orleans  people  at  Claremont.  Queen 
Victoria  invited  her  uncle  Leopold  to  rejoice  with 
her  at  the  election  of  Louis  Napoleon  although  'that 
one  should  have  to  wish  for  him  is  really  wonderful' ; 
but  she  showed  a  better  judgment  than  many  grave 
people  in  Europe  in  the  reflection  that  'it  will,  how- 
ever, perhaps  be  more  difficult  to  get  rid  of  him  again 
than  one  at  first  may  imagine.'  Stupid  provincials 
felt  vaguely  that  they  had  elected  an  Emperor;  but 
in  Paris,  where  they  knew  everything,  he  was  only 
a  President.  M.  Louis  Bonaparte  (it  was  an  effect 
of  his  English  reticence  and  his  expressionless  stare) 
seemed  to  the  wise  man  of  the  Chamber  so  mild,  so 
stupid,  such  a  good  listener,  a  patient,  backward 
pupil.  Ten  days  after  his  election  they  sat  round 
solemnly  on  a  winter  afternoon  to  watch  him  take 
the  oath.  The  austere  Cavaignac  sat  with  his  hand 
in  the  breast  of  his  coat,  as  someone  announced  the 
figures.  The  General  said  a  few  words  of  resignation, 
and  there  were  some  tears  among  his  audience.  Then 
the  President  was  proclaimed,  and  'the  citizen  Charles 

172 


THE  PRESIDENT  173 

Louis  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  born  at  Paris'  was  in- 
vited to  take  the  oath  to  the  Republic.  He  followed 
it  with  a  short  speech,  and  General  Cavaignac  folded 
his  arms.  The  President  spoke  of  his  duty  to  the 
nation  and  his  detestation  of  usurpers;  his  French 
accent  gave  entire  satisfaction.  He  was  dressed 
exactly  as  he  had  been  for  his  trial  eight  years  before, 
in  black  and  wearing  the  Legion.  As  he  left  the 
tribune,  he  turned  with  a  gesture  which  he  might 
almost  have  learnt  in  London  (although  M.  Thiers 
claimed  credit  for  suggesting  it)  and  held  out  his 
hand  to  Cavaignac.  Then  he  left  the  Chamber;  the 
officers  of  the  Assembly  proposed  to  escort  him  to  his 
official  residence,  M.  Victor  Hugo  shouted  something, 
and  the  ceremony  was  over.  It  was  about  half -past 
four  of  a  December  evening.  There  was  a  bitter  wind 
blowing  and  a  queer  flicker  of  winter  lightning,  as 
the  Dragoons  trotted  across  the  bridge  and  the  Prince 
came  home  to  the  Elysee  with  the  Lancers  behind 
him :  it  was  thirty-three  years  since  the  Emperor  had 
driven  out  of  that  gate  and  taken  the  road  for  Mal- 
maison  and  St.  Helena. 

The  Presidential  Court  in  1848  had  a  delightful 
air  of  impromptu.  Persigny  and  Mocquard  wrote 
the  letters;  and  a  young  captain  of  Spahis  named 
Fleury,  whom  he  had  met  at  the  Hotel  du  Rhin 
before  his  election,  formed  the  nucleus  of  the  Prince's 
personal  staff.  It  already  contained  a  Ney  and  a 
Meneval,  and  the  reminiscence  of  the  First  Empire 
was  to  grow  stronger  as  his  own  gestures  became  more 
Napoleonic.  There  was  a  little  dinner  at  the  Elysee 
on  the  first  Saturday  of  his  term.  The  workmen 
were  still  in  the  building,  and  behind  the  flowers  on 
the  great  staircase  one  could  feel  the  indefinable 


174  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

atmosphere  of  a  recent  removal.  There  was  a  Murat 
and  a  Ney  at  the  table,  and  M.  Victor  Hugo  with 
poetic  licence  was  half  an  hour  late  for  dinner.  The 
President  was  inclined  to  be  apologetic  about  his  new 
establishment,  and  the  china  was  deplorable;  but  the 
band  from  the  Opera  played  during  the  evening,  and 
his  guests  had  the  felicity  of  listening  to  the  Marche 
republicaine  and  a  pot-pourri  of  the  favourite  airs  of 
Queen  Hortense.  One  or  two  people  came  in  after 
dinner,  and  the  President,  after  telling  M.  Victor 
Hugo  how  he  saw  the  last  of  the  Emperor  in  the 
large  room  downstairs,  had  a  few  words  with  the 
British  ambassador.  On  the  next  day  (it  was  the 
first  Sunday  of  the  Presidency)  the  Prince  rode  out 
to  his  first  review.  The  troops  marched  past  on  the 
Place  de  la  Concorde  opposite  the  Tuileries,  and  some- 
one in  the  crowd  flew  a  kite  in  the  shape  of  a  great 
eagle  over  Louis  Napoleon's  head:  General  Chan- 
garnier  with  a  sudden  reminiscence  of  the  constitution 
had  the  string  cut.  The  Prince  wore  a  general's  uni- 
form in  spite  of  his  purely  civic  position  in  the  state 
and  the  advice  of  M.  Thiers  (which  was  not  uncon- 
nected with  his  own  sartorial  possibilities)  that  the 
President  should  always  dress  as  a  civilian. 

The  Presidency  opened  in  a  mild  round  of  official 
visits;  and  the  Bourse,  some  hospitals,  and  a  few 
works  had  an  opportunity  of  receiving  with  polite 
applause  the  short  gentleman  with  a  heavy  moustache 
who  was  the  anodyne  substitute  for  monarchy  pro- 
vided by  the  Constitution  of  1848.  Early  in  the  New 
Year  he  heard  Rachel  at  the  Fran9ais ;  and  there  were 
a  few  evening  parties  at  the  ^lysee,  where  the  names 
of  the  Second  Republic — Cavaignac,  Thiers,  Chan- 
garnier,  Marrast,  Montalembert — were  mixed  with 


The  Prince  President  (1848) 

From  a  daguerreotype  formerly  in  the  possession  of  the  Due  de  Morny 


THE  PRESIDENT  175 

faint  echoes  of  the  First  Empire — Bassano,  Came- 
rata,  Otranto — and  the  scene  was  set  by  the  slowly 
advancing  men  of  the  Second  Empire.  Twice  he 
called  on  Beranger  at  Passy;  but  the  old  man  was 
out.  Concerts  and  balls  afforded  an  opportunity  of 
exhibiting  the  President  to  the  great  world,  and  in  a 
more  systematic  succession  of  engagements  he  was 
displayed  to  the  army.  The  Dragoons  were  visited 
in  their  quarters  on  the  Quai  d'Orsay;  the  reviews 
went  on;  and  there  was  even  an  interesting  negotia- 
tion in  which  the  President  contracted  with  the  pro- 
prietors of  a  panorama  for  the  troops  of  the  Paris 
garrison  to  see  the  battle  of  Eylau  at  wholesale  prices. 
At  an  infantry  camp  in  the  Luxembourg  Garden  he 
was  found  in  a  still  more  Napoleonic  attitude,  tasting 
the  rations  and  demonstrating  to  the  army  that  it  was 
no  longer  the  servant  of  a  disembodied  committee  of 
politicians. 

French  politics  in  the  early  months  of  1849  were 
in  an  agreeable  state  of  confusion.  Constitutionally 
the  President  had  entrusted  the  government  to  an 
impressive  array  of  those  elder  statesmen  of  whom 
M.  Odilon  Barrot  was  the  most  solemn  representa- 
tive and  M.  Thiers  the  private  inspiration.  But  his 
affections  were  with  the  more  adventurous  group  of 
his  personal  adherents;  and,  on  the  proposal  of  the 
President,  Persigny,  Conneau,  Laity,  Vaudrey,  and 
Bouffet  de  Montauban  were  decorated  by  a  Govern- 
ment which  gravely  disapproved  of  them.  His 
ministers  constituted  what  would  have  been  considered 
under  Louis  Philippe  a  progressive  administration. 
But  their  principles  were  at  once  too  conservative  for 
the  Republic  and  insufficiently  monarchical  for  the 
President.  He  complained  to  Ney  that  they  wished 


176  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

to  make  him  'the  Prince  Albert  of  the  Republic,'  and 
he  refused  the  part  in  a  peremptory  letter  to  the 
Minister  of  the  Interior  demanding  the  files  of  1840 
relating  to  his  own  sedition  at  Boulogne  and  insisting 
on  the  submission  of  all  telegrams  to  the  Elysee. 
There  was  an  indignant  flutter  among  the  statesmen, 
and  the  President  apologised  politely;  but  it  was 
obvious  that  he  was  disinclined  to  confine  himself  to 
purely  ceremonial  duties.  Towards  the  end  of 
January  there  was  a  vague  threat  of  disorder  in  Paris, 
and  the  Prince  supported  his  ministers  in  a  vigorous 
display  of  force.  The  centre  of  the  town  was  occu- 
pied by  troops,  and  the  forts  were  taken  over  by  the 
regular  forces.  In  the  afternoon  the  Prince  showed 
himself  in  the  streets,  and  there  were  some  shouts  of 
'Vive  Napoleon!'  in  the  ranks.  Queen  Victoria,  to 
whom  (as  his  official  'Tres  chere  et  grande  Amie'}  he 
had  written  a  polite  letter  on  entering  office,  paid  him 
the  compliment  of  informing  her  uncle  at  Brussels 
that  'everybody  says  Louis  Napoleon  had  behaved 
extremely  well  in  the  last  crisis — full  of  courage  and 
energy,  and  they  say  that  he  is  decidedly  straight- 
forward, which  is  not  to  be  despised.'  The  Prince- 
President  was  beginning  to  take  his  place  in  the 
European  hierarchy. 


IV 

ON  an  April  afternoon  in  1849  twelve  hundred  men 
marched  through  a  cheering  crowd  down  the  Corso 
into  Rome.  They  swung  along  in  the  spring  sunshine 
wearing  green  cloaks,  and  at  the  head  of  them  went 
a  bearded  man  on  a  white  horse;  he  rode  slowly  in 
a  white  poncho  with  a  great  mane  of  golden  hair  that 
hung  to  his  shoulders,  and  a  tall  negro  rode  behind 
him  on  a  black  horse  with  a  lasso  at  his  saddle-bow, 
wearing  a  blue  cloak.  His  officers  marched  in  red 
shirts,  and  in  the  ranks  men  wore  those  tall  Calabrian 
hats  which  are  inseparable  from  the  picturesque  call- 
ing of  operatic  brigandage  and  delighted  the 
assembled  artists  of  Rome,  who  had  almost  exhausted 
the  pifferari  and  contadine  of  the  Campagna.  The 
little  column  marched  away  to  bivouac  in  an  empty 
convent,  and  all  Rome  knew  that  Garibaldi  and  his 
Legion  had  come  in  from  the  north  to  defend  the 
Republic. 

He  was  a  queer,  spectacular  figure,  whose  patriot- 
ism was  of  that  peculiar  intensity  which  a  man  derives 
from  being  born  on  the  extreme  limit  of  his  country 
and  passing  most  of  his  life  outside  it.  As  a  boy  he 
had  lived  at  Nice,  which  owed  an  interchangeable 
allegiance  to  France  and  Piedmont,  spoke  a  Proven- 
9al  patois,  and  regarded  both  the  Italian  and  the 
French  languages  as  genteel  affectations;  and  as  a 

12  177 


178  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

young  man  he  saw  as  much  of  the  world  and  as  little 
of  any  single  part  of  it  as  a  captain  in  the  merchant 
service  may,  working  mostly  in  the  Mediterranean 
and  Levantine  trades.  Once  he  commenced  to  tutor  in 
an  Italian  family  at  Constantinople.  But  he  went 
back  to  the  sea,  and  in  a  sailors'  inn  at  a  Black  Sea 
port  he  found  a  young  man  from  Genoa  who  told 
him  that  there  were  men  in  the  world  hoping  to  build 
up  a  strong  and  single  Italy  from  the  welter  of  king- 
doms and  duchies  over  which  the  Pope  and  the  Bour- 
bons and  the  white  coats  of  the  Austrians  kept  guard. 
Then  at  Marseilles,  in  the  house  where  ILmile  Ollivier 
was  a  boy,  he  met  Mazzini  and  vanished  into  the  twi- 
light of  false  names  and  secret  societies  in  which  that 
spare,  gaunt  figure  flitted  vaguely  beckoning  to  young 
men  to  follow,  follow  round  the  world  and  into  prison 
and  to  the  galleys  the  faint  light  which  might  one  day 
dawn  on  Italy.  The  masters  of  Italy  had  reduced 
patriotism  to  a  conspiracy,  and  Garibaldi  took  service 
in  the  Piedmontese  navy  with  the  simple  object  of 
permeating  the  fleet  with  the  ideal  of  insurrection. 
The  movement  failed,  and  a  courtmartial  in  Genoa 
sentenced  to  death  as  a  bandit  of  the  first  class 
'Garibaldi,  Giuseppe  Maria,  son  of  Domenico,  aged 
26,  captain  in  the  merchant  service  and  sailor  of  the 
third  class  in  the  Royal  service.'  He  did  not  wait  for 
the  sentence  to  be  carried  out,  but  bolted  to  Marseilles, 
went  two  voyages  under  the  French  flag,  and  sailed 
for  South  America.  For  twelve  years  he  was  half 
seen  across  the  great  distances,  buccaneering  on  the 
Rio  Grande,  commanding  gunboats  against  the  Em- 
peror of  Brazil,  riding  across  the  great  plains  of 
Uruguay  to  dine  at  an  estancia  on  beef  and  mate  with 
the  capataz,  and  charge  with  the  sword  or  the  whirling 


THE  PRESIDENT  179 

bolas  as  the  army  thundered  out  the  battle  hymn  of 
the  Republic  and  the  negro  lancers  crashed  home.  It 
was  a  queer  life  of  long  marches  and  sudden  fights, 
and  the  little  towns  of  Italy  must  have  seemed  very 
far  away  as  the  great  moon  came  up  over  Corrientes 
and  the  gauchos  off-saddled  in  the  long  grass.  He 
found  a  wife  by  a  Brazilian  river,  falling  in  love  (as 
few  men  do)  through  a  telescope  and  opening  his 
first  conversation  with  a  proposal  in  Italian,  which 
was  fortunately  overlooked,  since  the  young  lady 
spoke  only  Portuguese.  But  he  lived  mostly  among 
Italians;  and  when  Rosas  marched  against  Monte- 
video, he  raised  an  Italian  legion  for  the  defence  of 
the  Republic.  They  marched  behind  a  black  flag 
emblazoned,  for  remembrance  of  Italy's  mourning 
and  her  hope,  with  a  burning  mountain;  and  since  a 
shipper  had  failed  to  find  a  market  for  some  scarlet 
woollens  imported  for  wear  in  the  Argentine 
slaughter-houses,  they  wore  red  shirts.  They  fought 
well  with  the  bayonet ;  and  sometimes  Garibaldi  served 
in  command  of  the  young  Republic's  younger  navy. 
But  as  the  guns  boomed  across  the  River  Plate,  men 
from  Venice  and  Genoa  began  to  remember  Italy. 
Their  leader  had  kept  touch  with  Mazzini;  and  when 
a  new  Pope  seemed  about  to  lead  his  people  out  of 
captivity,  they  offered  their  swords  to  the  Holy  See. 
An  embarrassed  Nuncio  replied  politely  with  his 
prayers.  Five  months  later  the  Speranza  sailed  from 
Montevideo  with  Garibaldi  and  sixty-two  Italians; 
they  had  learnt  to  fight,  and  their  desire  was  to  fight 
for  Italy.  They  brought  with  them  into  European 
warfare  a  queer  flavour  of  South  America,  with  their 
great  saddles  and  their  lassos,  sitting  their  horses  in 
long  ponchos  and  rounding  up  cattle  under  the  heights 


180  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

of  Palestrina  as  though  the  Anio  had  been  the  Rid 
Grande. 

Italy  in  1848  was  a  seething  cauldron.  There  was 
a  Pope  at  Rome  to  whom  men  looked  for  liberty; 
Piedmont,  Tuscany,  even  Naples  found  their  rulers 
growing  apprehensive  and  almost  constitutional;  the 
Milanese  rose  and  swept  the  Austrians  behind  the 
four  great  fortresses  of  the  Venetian  border,  whilst 
in  Venice  Manin  and  his  men  made  a  republic  once 
more  among  the  lagoons.  Piedmont  drifted  ner- 
vously into  war  with  Austria;  but  Radetzky  was  too 
strong  for  the  Italians,  and  they  were  driven  west- 
wards out  of  Lombardy.  There  was  a  flicker  of 
insurrection  among  the  mountains  in  the  north,  where 
Garibaldi  and  his  Legion  hung  on  the  Austrian  flank. 
On  the  road  to  Como  he  met  Mazzini  marching  with  a 
great  banner,  and  for  a  few  weeks  he  fought  an  in- 
genious rearguard  action  among  the  lakes.  Then  he 
passed  the  Swiss  frontier  and  Italy  seemed  to  lie 
helpless  again  before  her  masters.  There  was  a  vague 
stirring  with  nervous  protests  towards  Liberalism. 
But  there  is  a  stage  in  political  history  at  which 
Liberals  are  more  distasteful  to  a  people  than  the 
frank  reactionaries.  Measured  progress  is  a  poor 
substitute  for  revolution,  and  its  Liberal  exponents 
owe  their  frequent  unpopularity  to  their  judicious 
and  exasperating  blend  of  moderation  and  enlighten- 
ment. The  Pope  took  a  minister  who  had  learnt  the 
art  of  government  in  Paris;  but  the  reforms  which 
would  have  satisfied  opinion  under  Louis  Philippe 
were  an  ineffectual  gesture  under  Pius  IX.;  and 
Rossi,  who  might  have  organised  the  States  of  the 
Church  in  a  year,  was  murdered  after  a  month  in  a 
Roman  crowd.  There  was  a  yell  of  triumph,  and  a 


THE  PRESIDENT  181 

young  lady  from  Boston,  who  was  honoured  with  the 
acquaintance  of  Mr.  Emerson  and  Mr.  Carlyle,  sat 
down  to  convey  her  satisfaction  in  terms  which  must 
have  startled  her  mother  in  New  England.  The  Pope 
was  disinclined  to  preside  over  a  chaotic  democracy; 
and  after  a  few  days  of  disorder,  he  dressed  as  a 
parish  priest  and  drove  (railways  had  been  prohibited 
by  his  predecessor)  down  the  Appian  Way  into  the 
Kingdom  of  Naples,  whilst  behind  him  the  people 
of  his  capital  settled  down  in  the  last  weeks  of  1848 
to  the  confused  experiment  of  the  Roman  Republic. 

The  Italian  nature  and  the  unexampled  splendour 
of  the  Roman  background  invested  the  affairs  of  this 
struggling  commonwealth  with  an  irresistible  atmos- 
phere of  charade.  The  great  mass  of  the  Colosseum 
and  the  broken  columns  of  the  Forum  were  a  constant 
temptation  to  impressionable  politicians,  and  they 
would  have  been  less  than  human  (and  far  less  than 
Latin)  if  they  had  omitted  to  strike  classical  attitudes 
against  the  Roman  sky.  The  fasces,  the  wolf  of  the 
Capitol,  the  civic  crown  were  conscientiously  pro- 
duced as  properties  on  the  crowded  stage;  and  when 
the  austere  Mazzini  was  called  to  save  the  little  state, 
he  found  himself  draped  with  the  impressive  title  of  a 
Triumvir.  A  Mr.  Arthur  Clough  of  Rugby,  Balliol, 
and  (until  recently)  Oriel  was  worrying  the  dictator 
for  a  permit  to  see  the  Vatican ;  but  the  principal  pre- 
occupations of  the  new  government  related  to  its 
foreign  policy.  From  the  first  the  Republic  lived 
under  the  shadow  of  foreign  intervention.  Even 
when  Pius  was  playing  gently  with  reform,  Metter- 
nich  had  lamented  at  Vienna  that  he  should  live 
to  see  a  Jacobin  Pope  and  discussed  intervention  with 
the  French,  and  Louis  Philippe  in  his  last  weeks  of 


182  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

power  mobilised  a  few  thousand  men  in  the  Mediter- 
ranean ports  to  sail  for  the  Tiber.  But  when  the 
Pope  suffered  the  final  indignity  of  flight  and  ap- 
pealed to  the  world  in  the  cold  eloquence  of  Papal 
Latin,  there  was  a  touching  rivalry  between  the  com- 
peting defenders  of  the  faith.  Naples  was  his  host 
at  Gaeta ;  and  the  Neapolitan  army  was  massed  on  the 
Roman  frontier,  ready  to  retreat  with  alacrity  from 
any  enemy  and  observed  across  the  border  by  Gari- 
baldi and  his  Legion,  who  were  drifting  southwards 
through  Italy  in  search  of  insurrection.  Austria  was 
putting  troops  into  Romagna  from  the  north,  march- 
ing with  an  unaccustomed  air  of  victory  since  Pied- 
mont had  flung  convulsively  into  war  in  the  spring 
days  of  1849  and  crashed  into  disaster  at  Novara. 
Even  Spain  was  fumbling  with  her  army  in  her  own 
fashion,  as  though  time  stood  still  and  Philip  was  still 
king  and  Olivares  and  his  heavy  infantry  were  taking 
the  road  again  for  Italy.  But  France  was  too  quick 
for  them,  and  three  brigades  and  a  few  guns  were 
moved  on  Toulon  and  Marseilles  to  form  (it  was  an 
ominous  name)  the  Mediterranean  Expeditionary 
Force  and  bring  the  Pope  to  his  own  again.  It  was 
a  singular  Crusade.  The  motive,  apart  from  a  desire 
in  the  new  Government  to  please  the  Catholic  masses 
of  the  French  countryside,  was  a  simple  jealousy  of 
Austria,  a  fear  that  France  might  be  forgotten  in  the 
world  if  Radetzky's  armies,  which  had  struck  down 
Piedmont  at  Novara,  became  the  masters  of  Central 
Italy,  a  sudden  return  of  the  old  desire  to  porter  haut 
le  drapeau  de  la  France.  So  it  was  that  Louis 
Napoleon,  and  not  Franz-Joseph  or  King  Bomba 
or  Queen  Isabella  became  defender  of  the  faith,  and 
a  French  fleet  anchored  off  Civitavecchia  on  an  April 


THE  PRESIDENT  183 

afternoon  in  1849,  and  the  Legion  came  marching  into 
Rome  with  Garibaldi  riding  at  its  head  to  defend  the 
Republic. 

An  embarrassed  French  general  (he  bore,  with  a 
faint  flavour  of  old  battles,  the  name  of  Oudinot)  was 
instructed  to  occupy  Romagna  and  to  settle  the  dis- 
pute, to  protect  the  Romans  from  the  Austrians,  from 
the  Spaniards,  from  the  Neapolitans,  from  them- 
selves :  there  was  no  reference  in  his  instructions  to  the 
course  to  be  followed  in  the  event  of  any  reluctance  on 
the  part  of  the  new  Republic  to  have  its  destinies 
decided  at  French  headquarters.  His  troops  were 
landed,  and  there  was  a  friendly  air  in  the  port.  But 
at  Rome  the  murmurs  swelled  into  a  roar.  The 
Garibaldians  marched  in  with  Masina's  lancers;  and 
two  days  later  the  Bersaglieri  from  the  north,  nine 
hundred  strong,  sent  their  cocks'  plumes  waving 
through  the  streets.  So  Rome  would  defend  itself, 
and  on  an  April  morning  the  French  marched  up  the 
white  road  from  the  sea.  They  marched  for  two  days, 
and  in  the  dawn  they  moved  against  the  Vatican  hill. 
There  was  a  great  wall  round  the  city,  and  the 
Chasseurs  a  pied  went  with  sloped  arms  against  the 
gates.  Two  guns  spoke  from  the  wall,  and  the  French 
artillery  unlimbered.  Their  infantry  went  at  the  old 
fortress  with  the  bayonet;  but  the  Italians  shot  from 
behind  their  ramparts,  and  the  attack  failed.  Mr. 
Clough  walked  up  the  Pincio  and  saw  the  smoke ;  then 
he  went  home  to  write  a  letter,  and  the  sound  of 
gunfire  drifted  across  Rome. 

There  was  a  flutter  in  Paris  when  the  news  came. 
The  Chamber  began  to  ask  questions  about  the  use 
of  republican  guns  for  the  suppression  of  young 
republics.  But  there  was  a  Bonaparte  at  the  head 


184  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

of  the  state,  and  his  inherited  tradition  after  a  defeat 
was  to  issue  a  mendacious  communique  and  send 
more  troops.  In  the  month  of  May,  whilst  General 
Vaillant  of  the  Engineers  was  considering  whether  to 
make  his  breach  in  the  walls  of  Pope  Urban  or  to 
trace  his  parallels  against  the  line  of  more  interesting 
antiques  which  the  Emperor  Aurelius  had  built 
beyond  the  Tiber,  France  was  assured  that  the  flag 
would  not  be  dishonoured;  and  the  siege-guns  were 
slung  on  board  at  Toulon.  Meanwhile  there  was  an 
odd  attempt  to  end  the  war:  an  energetic  person 
named  de  Lesseps,  who  had  graduated  in  a  course  of 
civil  disorder  at  the  French  consulate  in  Barcelona, 
was  sent  from  Paris  with  instructions  to  please  all 
parties,  from  the  Roman  Republic  to  the  exiled  Pope, 
and  to  co-ordinate  with  more  than  consular  ingenuity 
the  general  in  command  before  Rome,  the  French  am- 
bassadors in  Italy,  and  in  European  conference  which 
was  in  intermittent  session  round  the  Pope's  door  at 
Gaeta.  He  hurried  cheerfully  from  Paris  to  Toulon 
and  from  Toulon  to  Rome.  He  made  an  armistice 
and  drove  busily  up  and  down  between  Mazzini  and 
the  French  camp,  while  Mr.  Clough  hovered  round 
the  Sistine  Chapel  and  Garibaldi  moved  out  into  the 
Campagna  and  drove  the  Neapolitans  off  the  Alban 
Hills.  The  Legion  rode  out  with  its  lassos  and  its 
queer  American  habits  of  indiscipline;  but  King 
Bomba's  army  displayed  its  customary  ingenuity  in 
sudden  and  silent  withdrawals,  and  the  armies  were 
rarely  in  contact.  At  Rome  Mazzini  was  negotiating 
at  the  Quirinal  with  the  fascinating  M.  de  Lesseps, 
and  a  treaty  was  even  drafted  between  the  two 
republics.  But  the  busy  consul  from  Barcelona  found 
it  easier  twenty  years  later  to  reconcile  Suez  to  Port 


THE  PRESIDENT  185 

Said  than  to  align  Mazzini  with  French  headquarters 
in  1849.  His  treaty  was  denounced  by  General  Oudi- 
not ;  Garibaldi's  raiders  swept  into  the  city  after  their 
easy  victories  in  the  south;  and  the  war  went  on. 

Rome  was  besieged  en  regie  through  the  month  of 
June.  The  French  rushed  an  advanced  post  in  the 
still  dawn  of  a  Sunday  morning;  the  Italians  went 
running  through  the  empty  streets  and  Garibaldi  was 
brought  out  of  bed  by  the  sound  of  the  guns;  there 
was  an  early  parade  of  the  garrison  on  the  great 
square  before  St.  Peter's  with  every  bell  in  Rome 
reeling  and  clanging  in  its  belfry,  and  in  the  early 
light  the  young  men  went  charging  up  the  hill  against 
the  French.  The  red  shirts  went  shouting  at  the 
double,  and  Garibaldi  sat  his  horse  in  his  great  white 
cloak ;  there  was  a  sound  of  bugles  coming  up  the  hill 
from  Rome,  and  the  Bersaglieri  drove  at  the  French 
line.  But  it  held  firm,  and  the  young  men  on  the 
hillside  learned  to  die  for  Italy.  The  sun  came  up 
over  the  city,  and  the  Italians  spent  themselves  up  the 
slope  against  the  Villa  Corsini  in  wild,  attacking 
waves.  At  last,  in  the  full  blaze  of  afternoon,  forty 
men  from  the  great  meres  beyond  Ravenna  rode 
madly  on  horses  against  the  French  entrenchments 
and  galloped  unbelievably  up  the  hill,  up  the  steps, 
into  the  battered  house.  Half  Rome  surged  cheering 
after  them.  But  the  place  could  not  be  held,  and  the 
French  swept  back  into  the  position.  It  was  almost 
night,  and  the  guns  were  still  booming  on  the 
Janiculan;  Garibaldi's  white  cloak  was  vaguely  seen 
in  the  darkness,  and  half  the  night  they  served  the 
guns  by  moonlight.  Then,  for  three  patient  weeks, 
the  siege  went  on.  The  French  trenches  crept  slowly 
towards  the  city,  and  their  shells  went  singing  over  the 


186  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Trastevere.  Mr.  Clough  heard  the  muskets  'at  it,  at- 
at-at  it'  and  the  dull  slam  of  the  mortars,  as  he  walked 
about  and  polished  his  hexameters  about 

'a    great    white    puff    from    behind    Michel    Angelo's 

dome,  and 

After  a  space  the  report  of  a  real  big  gun — not  the  French- 
man's !' 

or  perfected  a  smoother  elegiac 

'in  a  Roman  chamber, 

When   from   Janiculan   heights   thundered   the   cannon   of 
France.' 

The  long  June  days  passed  slowly,  and  in  the  last 
week  of  the  month  the  French  developed  their  attack. 
There  was  a  long  roll  of  firing  for  eight  days,  and  the 
besiegers  broke  into  the  town.  For  a  week  and  two 
days  the  Italians  fought  across  the  slope  of  the 
Janiculan,  over  a  fragment  of  the  old  Imperial  wall, 
through  houses  and  up  gardens,  until  the  houses 
melted  into  ruins  and  the  ruins  faded  into  the  dust  of 
Rome.  Then,  in  the  dark  hours  of  the  night  after  a 
flare  of  illuminations  (it  was  St.  Peter's  day)  had 
died  away  from  the  black  roofs,  a  great  storm  of  rain 
swept  down  on  the  city,  and  the  French  moved  silently 
to  the  last  attack.  Garibaldi  stood  sabring  the  be- 
siegers in  the  darkness;  and  as  the  dawn  broke,  the 
Bersaglieri  died  grimly  in  a  reeling  house.  Slowly  the 
firing  died  away;  Rome  had  fallen. 

Garibaldi  rode  desperately  across  the  city  under 
the  midday  sun;  his  sword  was  bent,  and  his  great 
negro  was  dead.  He  offered  to  march  out  into  the 
Campagna  carrying  the  Republic  with  him,  as  he 
had  seen  the  Republic  of  Rio  Grande  years  before 


THE  PRESIDENT  187 

go  out  into  the  great  plains  of  South  America  in 
the  bullock-waggons  of  a  retreating  army.  But  the 
Assembly  surrendered  to  the  French.  Two  days 
later,  before  Oudinot's  kepis  could  march  down  the 
Corso,  there  was  a  vast  crowd  in  the  great  square 
between  St.  Peter's  and  the  sweep  of  Bernini's 
columns;  Garibaldi  rode  slowly  through  the  roaring 
throng  and  sat  his  horse  by  the  obelisk  in  the  centre 
of  the  square;  then,  in  a  great  voice,  he  called  for 
volunteers,  offered  them  'fame,  sete,  marcie  forzate, 
battaglia  e  mortef  and  turned  his  horse  through  the 
massed  faces  and  the  tears  of  Rome.  That  night  four 
thousand  men  formed  under  the  Lateran  and  marched 
slowly  out  of  the  city.  They  marched  through  the 
night,  and  they  saw  the  sun  in  Tivoli.  For  four 
strange  weeks  they  toiled  across  the  hills  by  Orvieto 
and  Arezzo  and  Macerata,  while  the  blind  armies  of 
France  and  Spain  and  Austria  fumbled  on  their 
tracks  and  the  paths  climbed  the  Apennine  and  trailed 
down  eastwards  into  the  Marches.  Garibaldi  went  in 
his  white  cloak,  and  Anita  rode  with  him;  and  the 
waggons  and  a  great  herd  of  bulls  had  an  air  of  the 
Rio  Grande  as  they  came  down  to  San  Marino  under 
the  Italian  sun.  In  an  August  night  he  rode  out 
again,  and  the  Austrians  were  close  behind.  Then  he 
came  down  to  the  sea  and  put  out  in  the  moonlight. 
The  Austrian  fleet  took  some  of  his  ships  at  sea ;  but 
he  ran  for  the  shore,  and  where  the  waves  break 
along  the  sandhills  by  Cesenatico  he  waded  through 
the  surf  with  a  dying  woman  in  his  arms.  There 
was  a  little  farm  by  a  great  mere,  and  its  windows 
looked  across  to  the  long  forest  of  sad  pines  by 
Ravenna.  On  a  bed  there  in  his  arms  Anita  died, 
and  Garibaldi  was  left  alone  in  Italy.  The  hunt  was 


188  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

after  him,  but  he  hid  and  wandered  and  marched  once 
more  across  the  mountains,  until  on  an  autumn  morn- 
ing he  put  out  to  Elba  with  a  loud  cry  of  'Viva 
I'ltalial' 

In  Rome  the  French  marched  in,  and  Mr.  Clough, 
who  had  been  at  Rugby  under  Arnold,  commented 
unfavourably  on  the  vivandieres.  Mazzini  and  Gari- 
baldi had  helped  the  young  men  of  Italy  to  dream 
a  great  dream.  But  the  Pope  had  come  to  his  own 
again,  and  the  French  bugles  sounded  the  diane  down 
the  long  Italian  streets  until  a  day  in  August  of  1870, 
when  the  red  trousers  marched  away  to  the  sea  and 
the  great  guns  were  booming  above  Metz.  The  siege 
of  Rome  was  the  prelude  of  the  Second  Empire,  and 
in  its  queer  melody  one  may  catch  the  dull  roll  of 
the  last  movement. 


V 

THE  comedy  of  French  politics  proceeded  briskly 
through  1849.  The  President  continued  to  take  the 
air  in  cheering  crowds  and  to  scandalise  his  ministers 
by  appearing  in  Council  with  the  unauthorised  mag- 
nificence of  striped  military  trousers,  whilst  the  ju- 
dicious politicians  of  Paris  began  to  regard  their  new 
acquisition  a  trifle  dubiously,  to  wonder  vaguely 
whether  they  had  really  made  the  wisest  choice,  to 
feel,  as  they  contemplated  that  mild-mannered, 
mysterious  figure,  a  faint  unconfessed  apprehension. 
But  the  elderly  gentlemen  who  were  the  rising  young 
statesmen  of  the  Second  Republic  and  had  occupied 
the  same  promising  position  under  Louis  Philippe 
(and,  in  some  cases,  Charles  X.)  were  very  sure  of 
themselves.  At  first  they  regarded  their  President 
with  amiable  contempt;  the  young  fellow  had  been 
so  very  ridiculous  in  his  youth,  and  M.  Barrot  talked 
of  fnotre  jeune  homme'  with  the  benevolence  of  an 
indulgent  pedagogue,  whilst  the  blameless  M.  Thiers 
appeared  in  the  unusual  character  of  a  man  of  the 
world  with  his  debonair  declaration:  'Nous  lui  don- 
nerons  des  femmes  et  nous  le  conduirons.*  General 
Changarnier  was  even  heard  to  refer  to  the  chief 
magistrate  of  the  Republic  as  *a  dejected  cockatoo.' 
The  President  went  quietly  about  his  business, 
presenting  colours,  visiting  schools,  inspecting  troops. 
One  day  he  went  to  mass  at  the  Invalides;  it  was 
the  Emperor's  anniversary,  and  as  he  knelt  under 
the  great  dome,  he  saw  in  the  crowd  a  line  of  tall 

189 


190  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

old  men  wearing  the  great  boots  and  braided  coats 
and  swinging  capes  which  they  had  carried  through 
Europe  under  the  Empire.  But  in  the  streets  out- 
side he  lived  in  the  grey  light  of  the  Republic.  France 
was  electing  a  new  Assembly,  and  the  post  was  filled 
with  the  conflicting  eloquence  of  circulars.  The  wise 
men  in  Paris  were  nervous  of  a  victory  for  the  revolu- 
tionary socialism  which  Cavaignac  had  blown  off  the 
streets  in  1848,  and  the  active  Persigny  was  sent  into 
the  country  to  consult  the  greatest  soldier  of  the  day. 
Marshal  Bugeaud  was  in  command  at  Lyons,  and  the 
Prince's  young  man  went  by  the  new  railway  to  its 
terminus  and  finished  his  journey  by  boat.  The 
Marshal  was  prepared  to  concentrate  eighty  thousand 
men  round  Lyons  and,  if  the  socialist  won  too  many 
seats  for  his  taste,  to  march  northwards  and  join  hands 
with  Changarnier  in  the  Paris  command.  All  one 
night  he  sat  with  Persigny  as  the  results  came  in,  and 
in  the  morning  they  could  see  that  the  country  had 
voted  against  socialism  and  there  was  not  yet  a  need 
for  the  army  to  save  (as  the  expression  went)  society. 
In  Paris  the  elder  statesmen  were  still  more  militant. 
There  were  a  few  arrests,  and  when  a  respectful  crowd 
shouted  'Vive  Napoleon!'  Changarnier  thought  his 
President  a  fool  for  postponing  a  coup  d'etat:  it  was 
an  opinion  which  the  General  was  to  revise.  There 
had  been  a  vigorous  campaign  by  the  Bonapartists ; 
a  committee  of  old  soldiers  demanded  a  Chamber  of 
true  believers;  an  enterprising  banker  urged  in  a 
circular  that  the  Presidency  should  be  prolonged  into 
a  Consulate  of  ten  years;  and  the  loyal  group  which 
had  fought  the  Prince's  elections  in  1848  took  the  field 
again.  The  results  were  a  singular  rebuff  for  the 
Bonapartists.  Five  million  voters  had  sent  the  Presi- 


THE  PRESIDENT  191 

dent  to  the  ISlysee.  But  they  were  not  equal  to  the 
mental  effort  of  sending  his  supporters  to  the 
Chamber  and  he  was  only  represented  in  the  As- 
sembly by  a  small  group ;  the  rest  of  the  Chamber  was 
preponderantly  conservative,  but  it  was  completely 
out  of  sympathy  with  the  Prince.  A  majority  could 
more  easily  have  been  obtained  in  the  Assembly  of 
1849  for  a  Bourbon  restoration  than  for  any  conces- 
sion to  Bonapartism ;  and  M.  Bonaparte  presided  im- 
perturbably  over  France  with  an  executive  which 
he  did  not  control  and  a  legislature  in  which  his 
views  were  barely  represented. 

But  the  Prince  was  not,  was  never  in  a  hurry. 
He  had  waited  for  forty  years  to  return  to  France. 
Now  he  was  in  France,  he  was  President  of  the 
Republic ;  and  if  his  friends  were  beaten  at  the  polls, 
if  policy  was  controlled  for  the  moment  by  an  hier- 
archy of  solemn  old  gentlemen,  he  could  afford  to 
wait.  It  was  enough  for  him  in  1849  that  the  country 
had  accepted  the  Prince ;  one  day,  if  all  went  well,  it 
would  accept  Bonapartism  as  well.  But  the  socialists 
were  in  no  such  easy  mood.  They,  like  the  Bona- 
partists,  had  been  submerged  in  the  conservative  flood 
at  the  elections.  But  they  were  disinclined  to  accept 
the  decision  and  invoked  once  more  the  democratic 
argument  of  the  barricades.  In  the  second  week  of 
June,  while  the  guns  were  booming  on  the  Janiculan 
and  Paris  was  fighting  dismally  against  the  cholera, 
they  used  shrill  language  in  the  Chamber,  printed 
wild  abuse  of  the  Government,  and  invited  Paris  to 
demonstrate  by  a  great  procession  against  the  war  on 
Rome.  It  was  a  manifestation  of  the  familiar  type 
which  had  made  history  twelve  months  before.  Under 
the  Provisional  Government  men  in  thousands  would 


192  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

have  marched  shouting  through  the  streets  and  M. 
de  Lamartine  would  have  addressed  them  (eloquently 
or  inaudibly,  according  to  their  position  in  the  crowd ) 
on  the  great  square  before  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  The 
Presidency  was  less  sympathetic.  As  the  procession 
passed  down  the  boulevards  (it  was  a  little  before  one 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  June  13,  1849),  the 
Dragoons  came  riding  up  Rue  de  la  Paix  from  the 
Place  Vendome.  The  great  crowd  was  crossing  the 
end  of  the  street ;  and  the  troops  took  it  sideways,  cut 
the  procession  in  two,  and  cleared  the  streets.  The 
manoeuvre  was  an  unheroic  but  welcome  substitute 
for  the  more  familiar  forms  of  street-fighting.  Across 
Paris  at  the  Conservatoire  there  was  a  faint  attempt  at 
insurrection.  A  few  deputies,  with  the  loud  voice  of 
M.  Ledru-Rollin  at  their  head,  startled  the  curator 
and  seized  the  empty  building.  But  four  companies 
of  infantry  and  a  few  shots  scattered  the  defenders; 
and  when  the  President  with  a  staff  of  generals  and 
a  squadron  of  Lancers  rode  out  in  the  afternoon,  the 
crowd  stood  cheering  in  the  Place  de  la  Concorde. 
It  was  about  six  o'clock  when  he  stood  in  the  ^lysee 
again,  and  he  turned  with  a  significant  laugh  to  the 
trim  Changarnier,  saying :  'Yes,  General,  it  has  been 
a  good  day,  a  very  good  day.  But  you  rode  me  very 
fast  past  the  Tuileries.' 

France  had  once  more  a  government  which  could 
keep  order  in  the  streets  of  Paris,  but  it  was  not  yet 
the  government  of  the  Prince.  He  seemed  content 
in  that  first  year  of  the  Presidency  to  make  ceremonial 
gestures  before  provincial  audiences.  Whilst  the 
Chamber  was  asserting  its  devotion  to  authority  and 
his  ministers  were  curtailing  the  freedom  of  the  press, 
the  Prince  was  deferring  amiably  to  his  advisers  (he 


THE  PRESIDENT  193 

never  was  heard  to  say  cJe  veuxf  but  always  fNe  vous 
semble-t-il  pas?')  or  touring  the  provinces  with  a 
repertory  of  blameless  speeches.  At  Chartres  he 
opened  a  railway  and  spoke  of  Henri  IV. ;  at  Amiens 
he  presented  colours  and  spoke  of  the  blessings  of 
peace;  at  Ham  he  proposed  a  toast  and  spoke  of  the 
wickedness  of  pretenders.  With  practice  and  in  spite 
of  an  excellent  education  he  was  acquiring  that  air  of 
happy  commonplace  which  among  public  speakers  dis- 
tinguishes reigning  princes.  The  summer  went  on,  and 
the  President  went  mildly  up  a  royal  avenue  of 
foundation  stones.  Railways,  which  had  so  recently 
been  the  speculative  rage  in  England,  were  spreading 
irregularly  across  France,  and  each  new  section  of  the 
system  was  opened  by  a  dull-eyed  President  with  a 
large  moustache.  At  Angers  a  bishop  blessed  him 
as  the  protector  of  the  Pope;  all  down  the  Loire  to 
Nantes  he  steamed  between  cheering  crowds  and 
clanging  belfries ;  and  at  Tours  he  struck  an  attitude 
of  injured  innocence  and  denied  the  malicious  imputa- 
tion that  he  was  an  ambitious  man.  His  hearers  were 
gravely  adjured  to  observe  his  modesty  and  to  dismiss 
all  suspicion  as  to  his  intentions.  But  this  effective 
display  of  political  virtue  was  marred,  in  official  circles, 
by  an  unfortunate  question  as  to  his  private  behaviour. 
The  blonde  Miss  Howard  had  followed  him  to  France. 
In  Paris,  by  a  concession  to  romance  more  familiar 
under  the  monarchical  than  the  republican  form  of 
government,  she  occupied  an  equivocal  position  as  his 
unofficial  wife,  and  he  was  even  accompanied  on  tour 
by  this  unusual  consort.  At  Tours  she  was  accom- 
modated, by  some  official  indiscretion,  in  the  house  of 
an  irritable  public  servant,  then  on  leave ;  in  a  temper 
of  prudery  or  patriotism  he  resented  the  intrusion  of 

13 


194  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

the  blonde  lady  from  Berkeley  Street;  a  complaint 
was  made  to  Paris,  and  the  President  was  called  to 
account  by  his  elderly  preceptors.  He  replied  in  a 
romantic  vein,  lamenting  his  loneliness  in  France 
without  friends,  without  family,  without  (it  was  the 
sad  fate  of  princes)  a  wife,  and  taking  a  tone  of  proud 
apology  (cJe  m'avoue  coupable  de  chercher  dans  des 
liens  illegitimate  une  affection  dont  mon  cceur  a 
besoiri).  It  was  queer  to  see  the  chief  magistrate  of 
a  Republic,  who  was  holding  great  audiences  in  Cham- 
pagne and  Normandy,  pleading  to  his  ministers  like  a 
nervous  nephew  before  a  tribunal  of  inexorable  uncles ; 
but  it  was  a  clear  sign  that  the  old  gentlemen  still  held 
him  captive. 

Slowly,  in  his  patient  way,  the  Prince  turned  to 
the  government  of  France  and  began  gently,  blandly, 
without  hurry,  to  lay  hold  on  the  executive.  He 
seemed  inclined  at  first  to  secure  a  control  of  foreign 
policy  through  the  embassies;  his  explosive  cousin 
Napoleon  was  sent  to  Madrid  and  rocketed  through 
that  solemn  gloom  in  a  blaze  of  indiscretions,  whilst 
Persigny  went  off  into  Germany  and  startled  Berlin 
and  Vienna  with  a  vivacious  course  of  lectures  on  the 
mission  of  the  Bonapartes.  French  diplomacy  was 
controlled  officially  by  the  judicious  M.  de  Tocqueville 
and  a  discreet  personnel.  But  the  President  seemed 
to  give  it  a  more  lively  turn  when  he  urged  an  am- 
bassador bound  for  Rome  to  look  up  his  old  Italian 
friends  in  the  Carbonari.  Gradually  he  took  a  hand 
himself;  and  as  the  Pope  fumbled  suspiciously  with 
the  resettlement  of  Rome,  Louis  Napoleon  accelerated 
the  deliberations  of  the  Cardinals  with  a  calculated  in- 
discretion. An  officer  was  sent  from  Paris  with  a 
letter  stating  the  President's  views;  they  were  lucid 


THE  PRESIDENT  195 

and  Liberal,  with  a  firm  injunction  to  the  Pope  to 
secularise  the  public  services  and  confer  upon  the 
Romagna  the  modern  blessings  of  the  Code  Napoleon. 
The  letter  drifted  about  Rome,  got  into  print,  and 
came  echoing  back  to  France.  The  Pope  nervously 
withdrew  to  the  more  restful  neighbourhood  of 
Vesuvius.  The  Cardinals  fluttered  apprehensively 
about  Rome.  But  the  agitation  was  greatest  in  the 
solemn  shades  of  M.  Barrot's  ministry,  where  the  elder 
statesmen  were  startled  into  vivacity  by  the  spectacle 
of  their  gentle  President  in  an  unaccustomed  attitude 
of  command.  The  rash  young  man  had  formed  a 
policy;  he  had  sent  a  curt  order  to  the  Pope  through 
a  Colonel  Edgar  Ney ;  and,  worst  of  all,  he  had  spoken 
in  the  name  of  France,  which  the  Constitution  had 
put  so  scrupulously  into  commission.  If  France  was 
to  be  found  anywhere,  it  was  believed  in  political 
circles  to  reside  in  M.  Thiers'  drawing-room  when  a 
number  of  old  gentlemen  were  present  sufficient  to 
form  a  quorum.  There  was  a  genteel  explosion  in 
Paris  when  the  President's  demarche  became  known, 
and  the  level  tones  of  his  advisers  rose  an  octave. 
They  defended  him  without  enthusiasm  in  the 
Chamber;  and  as  the  autumn  went  on,  he  persisted 
steadily  in  his  independence.  A  fresh  instalment  of 
the  veterans  of  Strasburg  and  Boulogne  received 
decorations,  and  the  paladins  of  Bonapartism  were 
enrolled  in  a  Friendly  Society.  An  urbane  figure 
was  brought  to  the  Prince's  table  by  a  friend,  and 
Louis  saw  for  the  first  time  his  mother's  other  living 
son.  M.  de  Morny,  who  was  to  personify  so  much 
of  the  Second  Empire  with  his  elegant  patronage  of 
the  stage-door  and  his  faint  flavour  of  the  Bourse, 
was  an  adroit  person,  something  in  the  taste  of  one 


196  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

of  Balzac's  heroes:  he  would  have  known  the 
Nucingens  and  married  well.  He  had  started  ( since 
he  was  Flahaut's  son)  in  the  cavalry.  But  he  drifted 
from  Algeria  into  business  and  then  (since  politics 
were  business  also)  into  the  Chamber  under  Louis 
Philippe.  He  had  his  mother's  charm,  pleased  all 
the  world,  and  smoked  cigars,  with  a  great  reputation 
for  political  sense.  The  Elysee  was  slowly  develop- 
ing a  party  of  its  own ;  and  as  the  President  stiffened 
his  grip  upon  policy,  his  ministers  withdrew  to  their 
studies  and  waited  for  the  bowstring.  Suddenly,  on 
an  October  afternoon,  he  sent  a  message  in  the  Ameri- 
can fashion  to  the  Assembly.  It  announced  with 
perfect  assurance  that  there  had  been  a  change  of 
government;  the  President  felt  that  control  of  the 
executive  should  be  undivided  and  had  appointed 
ministers  'who  had  as  much  regard  for  his  responsi- 
bility as  for  their  own.'  Their  policy  was  simple: 

'Le  nom  de  Napoleon  est  a  lui  seul  tout  un  programme. 
II  veut  dire:  a  I'interieur,  ordre,  autorite,  religion, 
bien-etre  du  peuple;  a  I'exterieur,  dignite  nationale. 
C'est  une  politique,  inauguree  par  mon  election,  que  je 
veux  faire  triompher  avec  I'appui  de  I'Assemblee  et  celui 
du  peuple.' 

The  President  was  master  of  the  executive;  and  his 
elderly  advisers  observed  his  gesture  of  authority 
with  something  of  the  bewilderment  with  which  hens, 
in  Persigny's  pleasing  image,  observe  the  first  naviga- 
tion of  a  duck  whom  they  have  unintentionally  helped 
into  the  world. 

The  ministry  with  which  Louis  Napoleon  faced  the 
world  at  the  end  of  October  1849  was  unimpressive; 
but  it  was  his  own.  There  was  no  Prime  Minister, 
since  the  Prince  intended  to  preside  at  his  own 


THE  PRESIDENT  197 

Council;  and  amongst  the  names  there  were  some — 
Rouher,  Parieu,  Fould — which  have  the  metallic  ring 
of  the  Second  Empire.  One  was  a  banker ;  two  were 
lawyers  from  the  provinces  whom  Mornyhad  recruited 
for  the  £lysee.  Rouher,  who  was  under  forty,  was  a 
persistent  young  man  from  Auvergne,  who  had  come 
to  Paris  from  his  country  town  with  high  professional 
abilities  and  that  appetite,  with  which  they  are  so  often 
accompanied,  for  public  employment.  His  affections 
were  transferred  with  a  rapidity  which  kept  pace  with 
the  movement  of  affairs  from  the  King  to  Lamartine, 
and  from  Lamartine  to  Cavaignac,  and  from  Cavai- 
gnac,  when  his  time  came,  to  the  President.  In  an 
age  of  fanatics  he  was  a  political  agnostic  and,  if  he  be- 
lieved anything,  believed  only  that  men  required  to  be 
governed  since  they  could  not  govern  themselves.  He 
possessed  as  a  speaker  and  a  thinker  the  fatal  facility 
of  a  good  advocate,  and  there  was  something  of  the 
successful  lawyer  in  his  almost  total  illiteracy.  Un- 
touched by  the  great  movements  which  had  set  young 
men  brawling  over  the  perspective  of  M.  Delacroix 
of  the  verses  of  M.  Victor  Hugo,  he  was  to  be  found 
in  his  early  days  roaring  choruses  or  dancing  in  un- 
critical quarters  where  Classics  and  Romantics  met 
on  equal  terms,  and  as  a  minister  declining  to  claim 
for  the  state  the  copyright  of  Saint-Simon's  Memoires 
because  the  state  could  have  no  use  for  'the  Memoirs 
of  that  fool  of  a  socialist.'  In  the  Chamber  and  in 
administration  he  was  as  efficient  as  any  other  me- 
chanical device,  and  he  began  in  1849  an  association 
with  the  Prince  which  was  hardly  to  end  until  the 
German  cavalry  rode  round  his  great  house  at  Cercay. 
The  President  had  formed  his  ministry,  and  it  re- 
mained to  govern  France  with  it.  He  had  absorbed 


198  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

the  executive,  and  the  world,  which  had  known  him 
as  'M.  Bonaparte,'  was  learning  to  call  him  'Louis 
Napoleon'  and  sometimes  'the  Prince.'  At  first  he 
seemed  to  be  supported  by  the  Assembly.  His 
ministers  stood  firm  in  the  rising  tide  of  socialism, 
and  their  firmness  was  appreciated  by  politicians  who 
were  increasingly  alarmed  by  the  waning  popularity 
of  government  and  its  symptoms  in  the  emergence  of 
M.  Victor  Hugo  as  the  organ-voice  of  democracy  and 
the  election  of  M.  Eugene  Sue  for  Paris  on  a  platform 
artfully  combined  of  socialism  and  serial  stories. 
Public  meetings  were  restricted;  journalism  was 
supervised;  the  franchise  was  reduced.  It  almost 
seemed  in  the  first  months  of  1850  that  the  President, 
having  mastered  the  executive,  would  live  in  peace 
with  the  Chamber.  The  elder  statesmen  resumed  their 
consultations  and  talked  interminably  with  a  wealth 
of  historical  parallel  and  good  advice:  perhaps  the 
prodigal  President  would  repent  of  his  independence, 
recall  them  to  office,  or  at  least  act  on  their  advice. 
But  gradually,  in  the  steadily  growing  uproar  of 
Bonapartism,  their  voices  grew  fainter  and  died  away, 
and  the  noble  figures  who  had  once  posed  as  a  Roman 
Senate  became  the  twittering  chorus  of  a  Greek 
tragedy,  recording  in  a  minor  key  the  course  of  events, 
upon  which  their  ululations  produced  not  the  slightest 
effect.  M.  Thiers  was  torn  between  the  duties  of 
a  parliamentary  Opposition  and  the  increasing  royal- 
ties of  the  Consulate  and  Empire.  But  when  the  tone 
of  the  Bonapartists  rose  and  distinguished  journalists 
began  to  write  openly  of  the  Empire,  the  politicians 
took  fright.  It  seemed  slowly  to  dawn  on  the 
Orleanists  that  the  Presidency  was  unlikely  to  end  in 
a  Bourbon  restoration,  and  the  republicans  began  to 


THE  PRESIDENT  199 

be  uncertain  whether,  when  it  ended,  the  Republic 
would  still  survive.  This  queer  mixture  of  motives 
aligned  the  Assembly  against  the  President,  and 
French  politics  in  1850  became  a  duel  between  the 
executive  and  the  legislature. 

Whilst  the  Chamber  gave  an  exhibition  of  its 
peevishness  in  a  puerile  attempt  to  limit  the  Presi- 
dent's expenditure,  Louis  Napoleon  continued  to 
cultivate  his  popularity  in  the  provinces.  Wherever 
a  new  line  of  railway  was  to  be  found,  the  Prince  was 
at  the  station  in  a  cheering  crowd.  In  the  summer 
he  went  into  the  north  with  the  bataillon  sacre  of 
Bonapartism,  Conneau,  Vaudrey,  Ney,  and  Fleury. 
At  every  town  the  bells  rang,  the  fire  brigade  was  in- 
spected, and  there  was  a  speech  about  the  President's 
love  of  his  country.  Then  he  turned  southwards,  and 
the  shouting  rolled  away  down  France.  At  Sens  he 
fought  his  way  through  a  battle  of  flowers;  at  Dijon 
there  was  a  great  ball,  and  two  days  before  the  Prince 
drove  in,  there  was  not  a  pair  of  gloves  to  be  bought  in 
the  town  and  a  single  tailor  had  taken  more  than 
5000  francs  in  dress  coats :  it  was  an  inelegant  function 
for  a  friend  of  Lady  Blessington.  The  provincials 
stood  in  the  sunshine  roaring  'Vive  Napoleon!"  and 
sometimes  'Vive  I'Empereur!'  and  the  President 
scarcely  heard  the  name  of  the  Republic  until  he  was 
on  the  Steamboat  between  Macon  and  Lyons,  when  the 
official  cortege  on  the  paddle-boxes  was  scandalised  by 
the  sudden  protrusion  from  the  river  of  a  hygienic 
socialist  wearing  the  simple  uniform  of  Eden  and 
shouting  'Vive  la  Republique  sociale!'  At  Lyons, 
which  French  administrators  have  always  regarded 
with  a  nervous  eye,  the  cheers  were  louder  than  ever. 
But  at  Besancon,  as  the  Prince  moved  up  towards  the 


200  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

eastern  frontier,  there  was  a  mutter  of  hostility.  Then, 
by  way  of  Belfort  and  Colmar,  he  came  to  Strasburg: 
it  was  fourteen  years  since  he  had  driven  in  by  the 
Colmar  road  to  a  lodging  taken  in  a  false  name.  The 
cheers,  the  flowers,  and  the  speeches  went  on  in  the 
summer  weather  of  1850.  Alsace  and  Lorraine  ran 
shouting  by  his  carriage;  at  Metz  the  King  of  Prussia 
sent  his  respects,  and  on  the  bare  hill  of  Gravelotte 
(the  war  and  the  Prussian  guns  were  twenty  years 
away)  they  had  made  a  little  triumphal  arch.  Then 
the  cheers  rolled  westwards  beyond  Paris,  and  he 
went  into  Normandy.  The  quiet  man  seemed  sud- 
denly to  catch  their  meaning,  to  see  that  France 
wanted  something  further  of  him.  His  tone  rose,  and 
at  Caen  he  spoke  of  his  new  duty  to  the  state : 

'Si  des  jours  oraguex  devaient  reparaitre  et  que  le 
peuple  voulut  imposer  un  nouveau  fardeau  au  chef  du 
gouvernement,  ce  chef,  a  son  tour,  serait  bien  coupable 
de  deserter  cette  haute  mission.' 

He  had  appealed  from  the  Chamber  to  the  country, 
and  the  crowds  had  answered  him.  Parisian  politi- 
cians might  gesticulate  angrily  at  his  name.  But 
before  larger  audiences  he  was  remembered  by  church- 
men as  the  defender  of  the  Pope  and  by  the  mass  of 
Frenchmen  as  the  nephew  of  the  Emperor.  It  remained 
only  to  captivate  the  army.  The  Napoleonic  incanta- 
tion had  a  strange  power  over  the  troops,  and  the 
President  had  taken  every  opportunity  to  make  him- 
self known  in  the  service.  But  the  Chamber,  in  its 
duel  with  the  Prince,  clung  to  the  hope  that  it  would 
retain  the  affections  of  the  armed  forces  of  the 
Republic.  Armies  are  rarely  enamoured  of  parlia- 
ments; but  the  dominant  figure  of  the  French  army 


THE  PRESIDENT  201 

in  1850  was  a  Parliament  man.  General  Changarnier, 
who  held  the  Paris  command  and  was  at  the  head  of 
the  National  Guard,  was  a  trim  military  gentleman 
with  a  supreme  sense  of  his  own  importance.  In  an 
age  when  a  Mexican  profusion  of  generals  abounded 
in  French  politics,  he  carried  himself  with  the  air  of 
France's  only  soldier.  There  were  moments  when  he 
was  half  inclined  to  yield  to  the  Prince's  vague  offers 
of  a  golden  future  and  a  Marshal's  baton;  but  they 
came  to  him  mostly  when  he  was  on  horseback  with 
the  thundering  cheers  of  an  army  in  his  ears.  In  his 
great  headquarters  in  the  Tuileries  he  decided,  under 
his  brown  wig,  to  maintain  an  impassive  exterior  (they 
called  him  the  Sphinx)  and  to  become  the  chosen 
soldier  of  the  Assembly.  The  salons,  which  were  still 
Bourbon  territory,  abused  their  master  and  tittered 
more  divertingly  than  ever  about  the  fperroquet 
malade*  under  whose  Presidency  they  lived.  At  the 
autumn  reviews  of  1850  the  President  tested  the  feel- 
ings of  the  army.  The  guns  and  the  Line  passed  the 
saluting  base  in  silence ;  but  the  cavalry  went  by  with 
a  great  roar  of  'Vive  Napoleon!  Vive  I'Empereur!' 
There  was  an  issue  of  treble  pay  and  extra  rations,  and 
anxious  politicians  began  to  complain  that  the  Re- 
public's reviews  at  Saint-Maur  and  Satory  had  been 
turned  (there  was  a  considerable  consumption  of  cold 
ham  and  stimulants)  into  al  fresco  Bonapartist 
picnics.  A  dithyrambic  gentleman  of  the  press  was 
inspired  to  an  ode  in  one  hundred  and  twenty  verses, 
terminating  with  an  apocalyptic  invocation  to 
Napoleon  as  'Empereur  Messie'  and  ' Christ- Soldat' 
But  Changarnier  openly  expressed  his  disapproval  of 
the  demonstrations  and  stood  boldly  between  the 
President  and  the  control  of  the  army. 


202  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Bonapartist  enthusiasm  rose  to  a  shriller  pitch. 
Someone  published  a  historical  study  of  the  blessings 
of  military  dictatorship ;  questions  began  to  be  asked 
about  the  great  Societe  du  Dix-Decembre,  and  a 
minister  (he  was  Baroche,  a  name  of  the  Second 
Empire)  explained  the  harmlessness  of  Friendly 
Societies;  but  there  was  a  growing  throng  round  the 
^lysee  of  gaunt,  hungry  figures  wearing  long  but- 
toned coats  in  the  image  of  Ratapoil,  avid  for  employ- 
ment and  ready  to  flourish  their  great  muscadin  sticks 
and  shout  for  ' — poleon'  on  the  streets  of  Paris.  The 
executive  made  a  move  against  Changarnier  in  the 
transfer  of  his  best  subordinate  to  a  provincial  com- 
mand. The  General  retorted  with  elaborate  dis- 
courtesy in  Council  and  a  prohibition  in  army  orders 
of  demonstrations  on  parade.  The  politicians  stared 
suspiciously  at  every  act  of  the  ^lysee;  and  the 
demand  for  a  plot,  to  which  Titus  Gates  had  reacted 
so  sympathetically  in  his  own  generation,  stimulated 
an  obliging  official  to  produce  a  fantastic  story  that 
the  Bonapartists  had  drawn  lots  for  the  murder  of 
Changarnier.  The  conception  was  too  garish  even 
for  the  leaping  imagination  of  Persigny,  and  the  feud 
proceeded  through  the  winter  of  1850  without  ever 
deepening  into  melodrama.  Early  in  the  new  year 
the  dapper  Changarlot,  whose  imagination  was 
haunted  by  Cromwell  and  Monk  and  the  other 
soldierly  figures  familiar  to  French  historical  analogy, 
assured  a  cheering  Chamber  of  his  devotion  'durant  le 
combat'  Morny  and  Persigny  caught  the  menace  of 
his  tone  and  slipped  out  to  warn  the  President. 
But  Louis  Napoleon  was  not  easily  alarmed  by  the 
General's  heroics.  It  was  only  a  few  weeks  since  he 
had  said  in  his  quiet  way  to  Rouher:  'Vous  etes  bien 


THE  PRESIDENT  203 

jeune,  monsieur  Rouher.  Si  I' on  venait  mfapprendre 
a  rinstant  meme  que  le  general  Changarnier  marche 
sur  I'filysee  avec  les  troupes  qu'dl  commande  aux 
Tuileries,  j'irais  au-devant  de  lui  avec  les  chasseurs 
a  pied  qui  me  gardent,  et  ses  soldats  se  reuniraient 
immediatement  aux  miens.  Monsieur  Rouher,  ma 
destdnee  n'est  encore  accomplie;  je  serai  empereurf 
In  the  same  level  tone  he  informed  his  ministers  in 
the  first  week  of  1851  that  Changarnier  must  go. 
This  intimation  was  repeated  with  courtesy  to  the 
elder  statesmen  who  shortly  bore  down  upon  the 
^lysee  to  discharge  a  heavy  cargo  of  good  advice. 
There  was  a  nervous  shower  of  resignations,  and 
the  President  was  left  to  search  for  a  ministry  with 
courage  to  dismiss  the  General.  Persigny  ran  round 
Paris ;  and  one  cold  morning  when  M.  de  Morny 
was  out  with  his  phaeton,  his  energetic  friend  met  a 
general  in  the  street  who  felt  equal  to  the  effort. 
The  government  was  hastily  reconstituted;  but  its 
nerve  was  uncertain.  They  sat  half  the  night  in 
Council,  and  before  dawn  the  Prince  was  offering  to 
replace  them  with  a  ministry  of  militant  Bonapart- 
ists.  But  the  threat  sufficed,  and  with  the  consent 
of  his  ministers  the  President  removed  Changarnier 
from  his  command:  the  heavens,  in  spite  of  all 
predictions,  did  not  fall,  and  the  judicious  M.  Thiers 
remarked  that  the  Empire  had  come. 

The  executive  had  struck  the  last  weapon  from 
the  hand  of  the  legislature;  and  as  the  duel  moved 
to  its  end,  the  focus  of  French  politics  shifted  to  a 
fresh  problem.  The  Constitution  of  1848  prohibited 
the  re-election  of  the  President  for  a  second  term. 
The  Prince  was  disinclined  to  return  to  private  life 
in  1852,  and  sane  parliamentarians  were  unwilling 


204  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

to  drive  him  to  extremes  by  maintaining  the  prohibi- 
tion. The  amendment  of  the  Constitution  was  de- 
bated through  the  spring  and  summer  of  1851  to  a 
running  accompaniment  of  threats  upon  either  side. 
The  Chamber  denounced  the  slow  dawn  of  the 
Empire  in  every  tone  from  the  falsetto  invective  of 
M.  Victor  Hugo  to  the  more  studied  chest-notes  of 
General  Changarnier's  'Mandataires  de  la  France, 
deliberez  en  paix.3  The  President  replied,  wherever 
there  was  a  railway  to  be  opened  or  a  statue  to  be 
unveiled,  with  the  grave  resignation  of  a  reluctant 
man  accepting  fresh  responsibilities.  And  the  streets 
of  his  capital  rang  with  an  appropriately  Parisian 
chorus,  of  which  the  refrain  was : 

'Revision! 
Revision! 
Des  lampions! 

Poleon 

Nous  1'aurons!' 

The  Assembly  was  forced  to  make  an  embarrassed 
choice  between  the  distasteful  alternatives  of  in- 
stalling Louis  Napoleon  in  the  Presidency  for  a 
second  term  or  driving  him  to  prolong  his  power  by 
an  act  of  violence,  and  about  midsummer  it  chose 
wrong.  The  Constitution  stood  unamended,  and  the 
Chamber  decided  that  in  1852  the  Prince  must  leave 
the  l£lysee:  since  he  was  a  Bonaparte,  he  could  leave 
it  for  the  Tuileries. 

The  struggle  had  become  inevitable,  since  the 
purists  of  the  Assembly  insisted  that  there  could  be 
no  legal  prolongation  of  the  Prince's  term;  and  on 
an  August  day  in  1852  Morny,  Persigny,  and 
Rouher  met  the  President  and  his  Prefect  of  Police 


THE  PRESIDENT  205 

at  St.  Cloud:  their  business  was  to  arrange  a  coup 
d'etat.  Opinion  had  been  prepared  for  the  shock  in 
the  long  weeks  of  the  Prince's  tours.  He  was  the 
greatest  figure  in  the  country,  and  his  emergence 
was  favoured  by  a  vague  fear  of  social  revolution. 
The  Church  was  friendly,  the  crowds  would  cheer, 
and  the  army  obeyed  orders.  It  remained  only  to 
make  the  plan  and  to  select  (since  politics  had  be- 
come a  military  problem)  the  soldiers.  France  had 
lived  for  twenty  years  in  the  shadow  of  military 
reputations  made  in  the  Algerian  wars  of  Louis 
Philippe.  Cavaignac,  Changarnier,  and  Lamorciere 
filled  something  of  the  position  held  in  the  later 
reign  of  Queen  Victoria  by  Lord  Roberts,  Lord 
Wolseley,  and  Sir  Evelyn  Wood.  The  French  pub- 
lic had  lost  the  habit  of  European  warfare,  but  its 
patriotic  appetite  found  an  agreeable  substitute  in 
the  more  picturesque  operations  in  Algeria.  The 
public  imagination  was  obsessed  by  the  hot  African 
glare,  the  slow  march  of  the  French  armies  across 
the  sand,  and  the  pounding  drums  of  the  Turcos 
as  they  went  in  shouting  with  the  bayonet.  It  had 
its  Rorke's  Drift  at  Sidi-Brahim,  and  the  Algerian 
razzia  became  the  favourite  background  of  French 
heroism.  The  Caucasian  races  have  always  pre- 
ferred their  heroes  slightly  bronzed,  and  the  vieua 
Africains  stood  high  in  the  favour  of  that  great  mass 
of  civilians  whose  vicarious  militarism  is  the  main- 
spring of  wars.  But  the  senior  generals  were,  with- 
out exception,  Parliament  men;  and  the  Prince 
turned  for  his  collaborators  to  a  younger  group. 
Reputations  had  been  Won  on  the  frontier  since  the 
older  generals  went  into  politics,  and  in  1851  Fleury 
was  sent  to  explore  the  African  garrisons  for  a  likely 


206  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

team;  his  excursion  was  financed  with  some  diffi- 
culty on  borrowed  money.  On  the  way  up  to  Setif 
he  stayed  at  Constantine  with  a  brigadier  named 
Saint- Arnaud.  He  was  a  queer,  raffish  figure  who 
had  commenced  life  in  the  army,  abandoned  it  for 
a  mysterious  interlude  behind  the  footlights  or  a 
counter,  and  returned  to  the  service  to  make  a  name 
under  Bugeaud.  The  man  was  past  fifty;  but  his 
ambitions  remained.  He  was  still  hungry  and,  like 
all  ambitious  men  outside  the  circle,  he  hated  politi- 
cians. The  disorder  of  democracy  disgusted  him; 
and  (he  had  seen  the  streets  in  1848)  he  could  write 
fJe  ne  me  laisserai  jamais  dominer  par  la  rue/ 
Fleury  reported  to  Paris  that  he  had  found  a  man 
for  the  work;  but  his  discovery  was  short  of  laurels, 
and  the  President  took  the  singular  step  of  fabricat- 
ing a  reputation  for  him  with  an  unnecessary  war. 
The  Republic  gravely  took  the  field  against  the 
Kabyles;  Saint- Arnaud  was  in  command  and  his 
operations  were  followed  breathlessly  by  the  Parisian 
press.  He  marched  into  the  interior,  startled  the 
tribes,  and  restored  the  peace  which  he  had  inter- 
rupted. There  was  an  impressive  fanfare  of  bulletins, 
and  France  had  a  new  hero.  Late  in  the  summer 
they  brought  him  to  Paris.  The  President  had 
found  in  the  jeune  Afrique  his  counterpoise  to  the 
older  reputations.  Saint- Arnaud  was  given  a  divi- 
sion, and  he  brought  with  him  a  Colonel  Espinasse 
who  was  well  qualified  to  purge  a  parliament  by 
his  three  failures  at  the  Staff  College.  There  were 
likely  men  among  the  Paris  brigadiers,  Forey  had 
a  command  (the  Empire  was  to  send  him  into 
Mexico),  and  with  him  a  colonel  of  Zouaves  named 
Canrobert.  Slowly  in  the  African  sunshine  the 


THE  PRESIDENT  207 

soldiers  of  the  Second  Empire  seemed  to  be  taking 
their  places  for  the  piece:  Pelissier,  a  Crimean  repu- 
tation, commanded  at  Oran;  Vinoy  (one  seems  to 
hear  in  the  name  the  slow  booming  of  the  Prussian 
guns  over  Paris)  was  still  in  Africa,  and  the  Turcos 
marched  behind  a  dark  young  colonel,  whilst  all  the 
world  sang: 

'Ce  chic  exquis 
Par  les  Turcos  acquis, 
Us  ledoivent  a  qui? 
A  Bourbaki!' 

It  was  a  man  who  was  to  see  the  running  fights 
across  the  snow  of  1871  and  the  slow,  trailing  march 
of  a  beaten  army  over  the  Jura  into  Switzerland. 
And  somewhere  in  the  shadow  there  was  (the  names 
are  growing  ominous)  a  Colonel  Francois  Bazaine. 
The  cast  for  the  coup  d'etat  was  almost  complete. 
General  Magnan,  who  had  refused  a  Bonapartist 
bribe  at  Lille  in  1840,  was  brought  to  the  Paris 
command:  he  asked  no  questions.  Saint- Arnaud 
began  to  study  his  part  hastily,  and  the  plan 
grew  in  cold  precision  under  the  quiet  hands  of  the 
President.  In  the  autumn  the  piece  was  ready. 
Opinion  was  duly  alarmed  by  a  lurid  publication  on 
the  Spectre  rouge,  and  it  was  thought  that  society 
was  willing  to  be  saved.  The  date  of  the  production 
was  fixed  for  a  day  in  September;  but  Saint- Arnaud 
declined  to  proceed  until  the  Chamber  was  sitting. 
There  was  a  shuffle  of  ministers.  An  energetic 
official  named  de  Maupas  was  promoted  Prefect  of 
Police,  and  Saint-Arnaud  went  to  the  Ministry  of 
War.  The  Assembly  met  in  a  nervous  mood.  Paris 
was  full  of  odd  stories,  and  the  President  was  to  be 


208  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

seen  in  the  autumn  mist  riding  in  the  Champ  de 
Mars  to  have  a  word  with  General  Canrobert  and 
watch  his  men  on  parade.  Whilst  the  Chamber  was 
drifting  into  a  wrangle  as  to  its  own  authority  to 
command  the  army,  the  Prince  told  half  the  truth 
of  his  design  in  a  public  speech: 

'Si  jamais  le  jour  du  danger  arrivait,  je  ne  ferais  pas 
comme  les  gouvernements  qui  m'ont  precede,  et  je  ne  vous 
dirais  pas:  "Marches,  je  vous  suis."  Mais  je  vous  dirais: 
"Je  marche,  suivez-moi!" 

The  days  grew  shorter  and  colder.  The  Paris  streets 
began  to  sing: 

'Nous  I'aurons! 
Nous  I'aurons! 
— Louis  Napoleon!' 

The  President  was  challenged  daily  by  his  Parlia- 
ment, and  in  his  slow  way  he  prepared  to  answer 
the  challenge.  His  reply  was  conveyed  curtly  in 
a  December  night  by  three  divisions  and  some  heavy 
cavalry.  That  evening  M.  de  Morny  was  seen  at 
the  theatre.  After  the  play  he  looked  in  at  the 
Jockey  Club,  and  two  hours  later  they  had  changed 
the  history  of  France. 


VI 

ON  the  night  of  December  1, 1851,  there  was  a  winter 
mist  over  Paris.  At  the  Elysee  there  were  lights  in 
the  windows,  and  a  sound  of  dance-music  drifted 
into  the  night.  It  was  one  of  the  Prince's  Monday 
evenings,  and  the  President  moved  slowly  among 
his  guests,  smiling  vaguely  under  his  heavy  mous- 
tache. He  said  a  few  words  to  a  young  Prefet  named 
Haussmann;  and  as  the  dance  went  on,  he  stood 
by  the  fire  and  talked  to  a  colonel  of  the  National 
Guard.  The  elegant  M.  de  Morny  came  on  from  a 
first  night  at  the  Opera  Comique,  and  after  ten  he 
walked  through  the  rooms  with  the  President  on 
the  way  down  to  his  study:  in  the  last  room  there 
was  a  portrait  of  their  mother.  Saint- Arnaud  and 
the  Prefect  of  Police  had  slipped  out  of  the  party, 
and  some  one  fetched  Persigny.  In  the  study  six 
men  talked  quietly  whilst  the  band  in  the  ball-room 
was  playing  a  cotillon.  Maupas  and  Saint-Arnaud 
went  through  the  time-table  of  the  night.  The 
Prince  took  up  a  file  of  papers  and  gave  out  the 
draft  of  a  decree  and  some  proclamations:  on  the 
outside  of  the  packet  he  had  written  the  word 
Rubicon.  Then  he  handed  10,000  francs  to  Saint- 
Arnaud  for  issue  to  the  troops.  Morny  said  some- 
thing apt,  and  the  President  took  each  of  his  men 
by  the  hand.  Before  eleven  the  carriages  drove  away 
in  the  darkness,  and  the  lights  went  out  at  the  Elysee. 

U  209 


210  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Across  Paris  in  the  winter  night  the  printers  were 
setting  up  the  proclamations  with  armed  men  stand- 
ing at  every  door.  Saint- Arnaud  sent  his  orders  to 
General  Magnan  for  the  troops  to  move  before  dawn, 
and  then  (he  was  a  desperate  man  of  fifty-three,  but 
he  had  once  been  on  the  stage)  he  yielded  to  the 
conventions  of  French  drama  and  wrote  eloquently 
to  his  mother.  At  the  Prefecture  of  Police  M.  de 
Maupas  sat  writing  by  his  lamp  in  the  night;  it  was 
two  o'clock  when  his  men  were  fetched  out  of  their 
beds  by  an  order  to  report  to  the  Prefect,  and  be- 
tween then  and  half -past  four  they  filed  through  his 
room  to  get  their  orders.  One  by  one  he  instructed 
them  to  arrest  the  party-leaders  of  the  Chamber  in 
their  beds  before  dawn,  and  at  five  in  the  morning 
his  men  began  to  move  across  Paris:  it  was  the 
Prince's  answer  to  the  Assembly.  At  the  Chamber 
itself  Colonel  Espinasse  slipped  in  through  a  gate; 
some  officials  were  arrested,  and  the  42nd  of  the  Line 
marched  in.  An  early  train  from  the  south  steamed 
into  the  Gare  de  Lyon,  and  M.  i£mile  Ollivier  went 
quietly  home  across  Paris.  It  was  still  dark  when  the 
police  began  to  knock  at  the  doors  of  the  statesmen. 
Changarnier  came  out  with  two  pistols  in  his  hands; 
Cavaignac  banged  a  table  and  relapsed  into  gloomy 
indifference;  M.  Thiers  sat  on  his  bed  in  a  night-shirt 
and  delivered  a  considerable  speech.  But  by  seven 
o'clock  they  were  all  at  Mazas,  and  the  collective 
wisdom  of  the  Chamber  had  been  transferred  by  a 
simple  operation  to  the  courtyard  of  a  prison.  Out- 
side in  Paris  the  troops  were  marching  through  the 
empty  streets  in  the  grey  light;  six  brigades  moved 
silently  into  position,  and  in  barracks  forty  thousand 
men  were  under  arms  in  support.  Before  dawn  bill- 


THE  PRESIDENT  211 

posters  under  police  escort  had  covered  the  town  with 
proclamations  by  the  Prince,  and  at  the  Ministry  of 
the  Interior  M.  de  Morny  was  explaining  to  a 
startled  minister  that  he  was  his  successor.  The 
Prince  had  struck  his  blow;  and  as  the  sun  came  up 
over  Paris,  the  Deux-Decembre  passed  into  history. 
It  was  broad  daylight  when  the  town  began  to 
read  the  news  on  the  hoardings.  They  found  a  curt 
decree  by  the  President  dissolving  the  Assembly  and 
proclaiming  martial  law.  It  was  accompanied  by  a 
more  reasoned  appeal  to  'the  one  sovereign  that  I 
recognise  in  France — the  people.'  The  factious 
opposition  of  the  Chamber  was  denounced;  the 
Prince's  high  mission — 'to  end  the  age  of  revolution' 
— was  proclaimed;  and  the  country  was  asked  to 
vote  upon  a  new  Constitution  with  a  head  elected 
for  ten  years.  It  was  a  Consulate  on  the  Napoleonic 
model.  In  the  streets  they  stared  at  the  proclama- 
tions and  hurried  on  to  work.  Scared  Deputies  be- 
gan to  get  the  news,  and  someone  brought  it  to  M. 
Victor  Hugo  as  he  was  working  in  bed.  On  the 
Place  de  la  Concorde  a  captain  of  Chasseurs  a  pied 
was  reading  a  proclamation  to  a  circle  of  his  men. 
It  was  addressed  to  the  army,  reminding  the  troops 
of  their  humiliation  by  the  crowds  in  1830  and  1848; 
it  spoke  of  their  common  interest  with  the  Prince 
('Votre  histoire  est  la  mienne.  II  y  a  entre  nous,  dans 
le  passe,  communaute  de  gloire  et  de  malheur  .  .  .') 
and  it  made  a  grave  appeal: 

'Aujourd'hui,    en    ce    moment    solennel,    je    Deux    que 
I'armee  fasse  entendre  sa  voix.' 

The  men  cheered :  Paris  was  indifferent,  but  the  army 
was  with  the  President.    At  the  Elysee  there  was  a 


212  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

great  coming  and  going  of  mounted  men,  and  about 
ten  o'clock  the  Prince  rode  out  of  the  great  gate  to 
a  shout  of  'Vive  I'Empereur!'  from  the  Cuirassiers 
in  the  courtyard.  He  trotted  out  into  Paris  with  his 
staff  behind  him,  riding  clear  of  the  escort  without 
turning  to  speak.  Saint-Arnaud,  Magnan,  Fleury, 
Excelmans,  and  Ney  rode  with  him  and  the  old 
King  of  Westphalia:  it  was  a  queer  procession  of 
the  two  Empires.  On  the  Place  de  la  Concorde  there 
was  a  roar  of  'Vive  I'Empereur!'  and  then  they  fell 
to  shouting  'Aux  Tuileries!  Aux  Tuileries!'  The 
great  gates  swung  open  and  the  Prince  went  in  at  a 
gallop.  But  the  old  King  said  a  word  in  his  ear; 
and  before  they  reached  the  palace  he  turned  his 
horse.  Then  they  rode  through  the  streets  for  an 
hour  and  more.  The  troops  cheered  steadily,  but 
sometimes  there  was  a  shout  of  'Vive  la  Republique!' 
from  the  pavement.  Paris  had  not  quite  lost  its 
taste  for  politics. 

There  was  a  feeble  gesture  by  the  politicians. 
Their  leaders  were  in  prison;  but  there  was  still, 
there  was  always,  M.  Odilon  Barrot.  At  his  house 
and  others  breathless  statesmen  held  little  meetings 
in  the  morning.  There  was  even  an  abortive  sitting 
of  the  Chamber  itself,  where  a  few  Deputies  slipped 
in  through  an  unguarded  door.  But  a  peroration 
is  an  unhandy  weapon  against  the  bayonet,  and  these 
gatherings  pursued  a  uniform  and  unheroic  course 
of  striking  Roman  attitudes  until  the  arrival  of  the 
military  and  then  dispersing  under  protest.  Even 
M.  Victor  Hugo  caught  the  infection  of  futility. 
When  someone  asked  him  at  a  meeting,  'Hugo,  que 
voulez-vous  faire?'  he  replied  in  his  best  staccato 
vein  'Tout'  But  since  time  was  not  available  for 


THE  PRESIDENT  213 

this  comprehensive  programme,  he  confined  himself 
to  a  more  limited  proposal  that  one  hundred  and 
fifty  Deputies  of  the  Left  should  march  processdon- 
nellement'  through  the  streets  decorated  with  tri- 
colour sashes  and  ejaculating  at  regular  intervals 
'Vive  la  Republique!  Vive  la  Constitution'/  It  was 
a  strange  expedient;  and  his  colleagues,  who  were 
less  habituated  to  the  theatre,  refused  their  parts. 
They  preferred  to  spend  a  confused  morning  in 
drawing-room  meetings,  in  the  street,  arguing  with 
soldiers,  with  passers-by,  with  one  another,  until  they 
were  headed  off  by  a  chance  suggestion  and  tramped 
hopefully  down  the  road  to  a  Mairie  near  the 
Chamber.  A  polite  crowd  began  to  shout  fVive 
I'Assetnblee!'  and  about  eleven  in  the  morning,  when 
the  President  was  riding  on  his  rounds,  more  than 
two  hundred  Deputies  met  in  a  large  first-floor  room 
for  the  last  sitting  of  the  Chamber.  After  an  agree- 
able interval  for  the  exchange  of  anecdotes  they 
settled  down  under  the  direction  of  M.  Berryer  to 
an  orgy  of  rapid  legislation  comparable  to  the  best 
efforts  of  governments  in  war-time.  They  decreed 
that  the  President  was  deposed;  they  decreed  that 
executive  authority  was  vested  in  the  Assembly; 
they  decreed  that  the  National  guard  should  be  called 
out;  they  decreed  that  their  colleagues  should  be 
released  from  prison;  they  decreed  the  transfer  of 
the  military  command  to  General  Oudinot,  and  even 
that  someone  at  the  door  should  refrain  from  ob- 
structing the  entrance.  But  their  proceedings  were 
closured  by  the  arrival  of  the  military,  and  General 
Forey's  infantry  cleared  the  room.  The  Deputies 
filed  out  under  arrest,  and  the  Chasseurs  a  pied 
marched  them  in  the  grey  December  afternoon  be- 


214  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

tween  fixed  bayonets  to  the  barracks  on  the  Quai 
d'Orsay.  The  President  had  made  his  reply  to  the 
Chamber. 

There  was  a  little  shouting  in  the  streets,  but  Paris 
did  not  move.  Constitutions  in  1851  seemed  made 
to  be  violated,  and  the  outrage  left  no  impression 
on  the  public  mind.  Loud-voiced  men  sang  the 
Marseillaise  with  an  air  of  defiance,  and  M.  Victor 
Hugo  startled  an  omnibus  on  the  boulevards  by 
protruding  suddenly  from  its  window  to  convey  to 
a  passing  regiment  of  Cuirassiers  his  opinion  of  their 
degradation.  But  the  scattered  sounds  seemed  to 
echo  in  a  dismal  silence.  The  church  bells  were  not 
clashing  in  alarm,  and  there  were  no  drums  beating 
to  call  out  the  National  Guard,  because  a  cautious 
executive  had  stove  them  in.  The  town  was  still ;  and 
as  the  evening  closed  in  after  the  short  December  day, 
there  was  a  fine  rain  falling  and  the  streets  were 
filled  with  the  clank  and  jingle  of  heavy  cavalry  on 
the  move. 

The  President  had  devised  a  singular  celebration 
of  the  anniversary  of  Austerlitz,  and  his  capital 
seemed  strangely  indifferent.  Paris  on  that  Tuesday 
night  was  almost  quiet.  The  great  vans  rumbled 
out  of  the  barracks  on  to  the  Quai  d'Orsay  taking 
the  Deputies  to  prison,  and  up  on  the  boulevards 
some  men  hooted  a  regiment  on  the  march.  M. 
Victor  Hugo  hurried  down  back  streets  pullulating 
with  laconic  eloquence,  and  there  were  a  few  sketchy 
attempts  at  barricades.  But  the  great  town  lay 
silent  under  the  night  mist,  and  M.  de  Maupas'  dis- 
creet agents,  in  their  anxiety  for  public  repose  took 
the  belfries  under  police  protection  and  cut  the 
bell-ropes.  M.  Victor  Hugo  spent  the  night  on  a  sofa 


THE  PRESIDENT  215 

and  slipped  out  in  the  dawn  to  pursue  the  agreeable 
pastime  of  tearing  down  the  President's  posters.  In 
the  morning  there  was  a  sputter  of  insurrection.  The 
troops  were  out  at  sunrise,  and  before  ten  they  were 
shooting  at  three  carts  and  an  omnibus  which  lay 
across  the  street:  a  Deputy  named  Baudin  struck  a 
brave  attitude  and  was  shot  dead.  But  the  barricades 
were  cleared,  and  M.  Victor  Hugo  was  left  shouting 
abuse  out  of  a  cab  at  a  general  on  the  Place  de  la 
Bastille.  A  few  Deputies  flitted  about  Paris  legislat- 
ing in  little  rooms,  abounding  in  republican  eloquence, 
muttering  to  workmen,  gesticulating  obscurely  in  the 
shadow  of  a  city  which  declined  to  revolt.  The  troops 
marched  back  to  the  barracks,  and  the  streets  were 
left  to  the  crowds;  General  Magnan  was  indisposed 
to  fumble  with  the  barricades,  and  his  plan  was  to 
withdraw  his  men,  to  let  the  insurrection  gather  and 
take  form,  and  then  to  return  in  force  and  break  it. 
All  that  night  Paris  was  filled  with  strange  stories  of 
revolt :  Rheims  had  risen,  Lyons  and  Marseilles  were 
up,  the  army  was  marching  on  Paris,  and,  strangest 
of  all,  the  Comte  de  Chambord,  who  reigned  in  theory 
as  Henri  V.,  was  at  Saint-Germain  in  the  uniform  of  a 
trooper  of  Dragoons.  They  were  all  false.  Nothing 
moved  in  Paris  on  the  night  of  December  3  except 
the  torches,  where  they  were  building  barricades 
in  the  darkness,  and  two  prison  vans  which  turned 
into  the  Gare  du  Nord  between  midnight  and  dawn 
behind  a  Lancer  escort  to  set  down  Cavaignac  and 
Changarnier.  The  coup  d'etat  consigned  them,  by 
a  pleasing  irony,  to  Ham. 

When  the  sun  came  up  on  December  4  (it  was  a 
Thursday  morning),  there  were  no  troops  in  the 
streets  of  Paris.  The  barricades  were  up,  and  the 


216  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

police  were  busy  tearing  down  the  placards  of  the 
insurrection.  The  morning  was  uneasy,  and  it  was 
after  one  o'clock  when  the  barrack  gates  swung  back 
and  the  army  of  Paris  came  marching  out  into  the 
town.  The  infantry  went  in  silence  without  bands 
or  bugle-marches,  and  the  field-guns  clanked  down 
the  streets  past  the  shuttered  shops;  sometimes  a 
crowd  on  the  pavement  shouted  'Vive  la  Republique! 
Vive  la  Constitution!  A  bos  les  pretoriens!'  The 
columns  formed  up,  and  before  dark  the  army  had 
broken  the  barricades.  At  one  point  it  had  done  worse 
and  fired,  with  an  evil  sense  of  power  which  was 
never  forgiven  to  the  soldiers  of  the  Second  Empire, 
into  the  crowd.  By  the  evening  of  December  4  the 
coup  d'etat  was  over ;  and  the  Constitution,  which  the 
Chamber  might  have  amended  by  a  majority  of  three- 
quarters,  had  been  forcibly  revised  with  a  loss  of  some- 
thing more  than  one  hundred  and  less  than  five 
hundred  civilians.  The  Prince  was  still  President  of 
the  Republic,  and  in  a  few  days  M.  Victor  Hugo 
stepped  out  of  a  train  in  Brussels  dressed  with  some 
care  as  a  workman  whose  luggage  consisted  almost 
entirely  of  the  first  draft  of  Les  Miserables. 

France  was  still  a  Republic,  and  the  electors  were 
invited  in  the  third  week  of  December  1851  to  approve 
the  new  Constitution  outlined  by  Louis  Napoleon  in 
his  proclamation,  with  its  decennial  Presidency  and 
its  Senate  and  Conseil  d'etat  and  its  strong  flavour 
of  the  Consulate.  Since  Paris  was  under  control  and 
the  provinces  had  been  systematically  captivated  by 
the  President  in  his  official  peregrinations,  it  was 
thought  that  society  would  signify  its  willingness  to 
be,  as  they  said  in  1851,  saved.  The  Prince  had 
promised  to  interrupt  the  long  course  of  revolutions 


THE  PRESIDENT  217 

in  France,  and  the  vague  menace  of  an  outbreak  in 
1852  seemed  to  reconcile  the  country  to  his  claims. 
He  was  assisted  further  by  a  strange  flicker  of  revolu- 
tion on  the  eve  of  the  plebiscite.  As  the  news  of  the 
coup  d'etat  ran  through  France,  there  was  a  stir 
among  the  advanced  parties,  and  with  that  rare  in- 
eptitude which  is  the  surest  indication  that  men  are 
following  their  natural  instincts  they  flung  suddenly 
into  insurrection.  Up  and  down  the  country  wild- 
eyed  men  cursed  the  allied  institutions  of  property 
and  the  police ;  the  red  flags  came  out,  and  there  was 
some  hoarse  singing  of  the  Marseillaise.  A  little  kill- 
ing in  the  south  flung  across  France  the  long  shadow 
of  the  Spectre  rouge,  and  the  Prince-President  alone 
seemed  to  stand  for  social  security.  The  army,  which 
was  the  natural  guardian  of  order  and  property,  was 
in  his  hands,  and  religion  (had  he  not  sent  troops  to 
Rome?)  seemed  safe  under  his  authority:  even  M.  de 
Morny  was  lecturing  his  Prefets  on  the  observance  of 
the  sabbath.  It  was  not  surprising  that  on  December 
20,  1851,  the  French  electorate  affirmed  by  plebiscite 
the  conversion  of  the  Second  Republic  into  the  Second 
Consulate;  and  when  they  did  so  by  seven  million 
votes,  the  Second  Empire  was  not  far  distant. 


VII 


IN  its  last  phase,  through  which  it  passed  in  the  year 
1852,  the  Presidency  became  without  affectation  the 
prelude  of  the  Empire.  The  news  of  the  coup  d'etat 
reverberated  impressively  in  the  high  places  of 
Europe.  Baron  Stockmar  composed  a  memorandum 
which  proved  conclusively  that  it  could  not  succeed, 
and  Queen  Victoria  took  almost  the  gleeful  tone  of  a 
schoolgirl  with  a  novelette  when  she  wrote  to  her 
dismal  uncle  at  Brussels  about  'the  wonderful  pro- 
ceedings at  Paris,  which  really  seem  like  a  story  in  a 
book  or  a  play !'  Firm  government  was  such  a  com- 
fort in  those  days  of  Radicals  and  Red  Republicans, 
even  though  one  owed  it  to  one  of  Lady  Blessington's 
peculiar  friends.  But  that  dreadful  Lord  Palmerston 
quite  spoiled  it  all  with  his  irresponsible  confidences 
to  the  French  ambassador  when  he  called  with  the 
news.  The  coup  d'etat  might  be  a  blessing;  but  it 
was  intolerable  that  the  French  Government  should 
be  told  so  by  Lord  Palmerston,  and  his  sovereign 
(with  the  assistance  of  several  memoranda  by  her 
Consort)  insisted  that  Lord  John  Russell  should  de- 
mand explanations.  Palmerston,  who  had  gone  a 
little  far,  explained  nothing.  Someone  had  told  him 
at  dinner  that  the  Orleans  family  was  packing  its 
trunks  at  Claremont  for  a  raid  on  France,  and  Mr. 
Borthwick  of  the  Morning  Post  had  been  offered 
exclusive  narratives  of  a  civil  war  which  the  Prince 

218 


THE  PRESIDENT  219 

de  Joinville  and  the  Due  d'Aumale  were  about  to 
initiate  at  Lille;  Joinville  got  as  far  as  Ostend,  and 
Aumale  posted  overland  from  Italy.  But  the  Presi- 
dent got  his  coup  in  first,  and  the  Orleanist  rendezvous 
was  never  kept:  the  Queen  confessed  to  a  'fear  that 
poor  Joinville  had  some  mad  idea  of  going  to  France,' 
and  his  Brazilian  princess  was  left  lamenting  to  her 
ambassador — fet  pauvre  moi  qui  devois  etre  a  Paris  le 
20!'  Orleans  princes  and  French  statesmen  were 
equally  distasteful  to  Lord  Palmerston,  and  their 
double  defeat  by  the  Deux-Decembre  evoked  from 
him  that  candour  which  is  fatal  to  Secretaries  of 
State.  The  Queen  pressed  her  advantage;  Lord 
John  was  taught  from  Windsor  to  be  firm,  and  before 
the  year  was  out  she  was  writing  to  Brussels 
almost  in  falsetto  that  'Lord  Palmerston  is  no  longer 
Foreign  Secretary /  whilst  that  bland  old  gentleman 
explained  to  his  friends  that  state  papers  were 
sometimes  'written  in  anger  by  a  lady  as  well  as  by 
a  Sovereign  and  that  the  difference  between  a  lady 
and  a  man  could  not  be  forgotten  even  in  the  case  of 
the  occupant  of  a  throne,'  and  clever  Mr.  Disraeli 
summed  it  all  up  in  his  enigmatic  way  on  the  stairs 
at  the  Russian  embassy  (one  really  met  him  every- 
where) with  the  queer  epitaph:  'There  was  a 
Palmerston !' 

But  in  Paris  the  Prince-President  was  imperturb- 
ably  installed.  He  had  become  a  European  fact; 
and  Prince  Albert,  who  was  a  student  of  facts,  was 
patiently  reading  the  Idees  Napoleoniennes  to  find 
out,  if  he  could,  what  it  all  signified.  The  meaning 
became  increasingly  obvious  as  the  new  government 
developed:  it  was  the  Empire  in  that  queer  pre- 
liminary phase  through  which  the  first  Napoleon  had 


220  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

put  upon  his  coins  the  two  contradictions  Napoleon 
Empereur  and  Republique  Franpadse.  The  Republic 
still  existed,  but  it  had  found  a  master.  Since  he 
was  to  rule  according  to  a  constitution,  he  was  a 
constitutional  monarch ;  but  he  had  the  rare  advantage 
that  he  was  to  draft  his  own  constitution.  The 
churches  prayed  for  his  name — Domine,  salvum  fac 
Ludovicum  Napoleonem — as  though  he  was  already 
a  king;  M.  Barre  of  the  Mint  was  modelling  his  profile 
for  the  new  coinage  in  place  of  the  heavy  features  of 
the  Republic;  and  the  eagles,  which  in  the  years  of 
victory  had  grown  to  be  the  crest  of  his  family  in  the 
eyes  of  Europe,  reappeared  by  his  decree  on  the 
standards  of  the  French  army. 

Repression,  since  he  had  saved  society,  was  the 
first  business  of  his  ministers.  The  prisons  of  the 
Republic  were  full  of  its  supporters.  The  elder  states- 
men were  in  their  cells  at  Ham;  Mazas,  Mont- 
Valerien,  and  Vincennes  were  filled  with  Deputies 
of  the  late  Chamber;  and  arrested  democrats  over- 
flowed from  the  gaols  of  Paris  and  the  provinces  into 
half  the  barracks  in  the  country.  The  politicians 
were  carefully  classified  by  M.  de  Morny's  officials; 
statesmen  were  deported  with  permission  to  return  to 
France,  agitators  (of  whom  Victor  Hugo  was  one) 
were  exiled  from  the  territory  of  the  Republic,  and 
innocuous  persons  were  shown  politely  to  the  prison 
gates.  But  a  larger  problem  was  presented  by  the 
common  prisoners.  Four  thousand  men  in  Paris  and 
five  times  that  number  in  the  provinces  were  still  in 
custody;  their  offences  varied  from  active  sedition  to 
unpopularity  with  the  police,  and  a  hasty  investiga- 
tion was  conducted  by  ad  hoc  committees  without  the 
technical  distraction  of  evidence,  procedure,  or  appeal. 


THE  PRESIDENT  221 

The  decisions  of  the  Commissions  mixtes,  on  which 
a  general  sat  with  a  lawyer  and  an  official,  cleared  the 
prisons.  There  were  no  death  sentences;  but  three 
hundred  men  were  transported  to  Cayenne,  the 
guillotine  a  sec  of  the  Directoire.  Less  than  two 
thousand  were  exiled,  and  ten  thousand  more  were 
shipped  to  Algeria.  The  rest  were  sent  to  prison  or 
set  at  large,  and  by  the  spring  of  1852  society  was  as 
good  as  saved. 

It  had  for  long  been  the  tradition  of  French  revolu- 
tions that  the  brisk,  decisive  days  of  insurrection 
should  be  followed  by  a  grey  period  of  constitutional 
debate  in  which  a  National  Assembly  travelled  slowly 
up  the  long  road  back  to  first  principles,  formulated 
interminably  the  Rights  of  Man,  and  drafted  with 
statesmanlike  deliberation  a  constitution  which  should 
be  (unlike  its  three  or  four  predecessors)  indisputably 
final.  The  Prince-President  was  disinclined  for  these 
solemn  exercises.  Three  competent  lawyers  were 
requested  to  produce  a  draft.  But  since  they  failed 
to  reach  finality  in  a  fortnight,  the  circle  was  narrowed, 
and  the  industrious  Rouher  retired  for  twenty-four 
hours  with  the  Constitution  of  1800  and  a  quantity  of 
paper :  he  emerged  with  a  constitution  in  eight  sections 
and  fifty-eight  articles  which  became  by  a  simple 
process  the  law  of  France.  With  a  queer  ingenuity 
it  combined  an  omnipotent  electorate  with  a  paralytic 
legislature.  The  voters  would  choose  their  master  by 
plebiscite;  but,  as  he  said  to  the  Austrian  minister, 
f  Je  veux  bien  etre  baptise  avec  I'eau  du  suffrage  uni- 
verse^ mais  je  n'entends  pas  vivre  les  pieds  dans 
I'eau.3  The  President,  who  was  elected  for  ten  years, 
absorbed  every  power  of  the  executive  and  even  exer- 
cised a  remarkable  control  over  the  Chamber.  It  met 


222  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

at  his  discretion  to  debate  legislation  introduced  on  his 
behalf;  its  amendments  were  to  be  submitted  for  the 
approval  of  his  Conseil  dffitat,  and  it  had  no  power 
to  consider  Bills  of  its  own.  Its  debates  were  to  be 
unreported  except  for  an  official  minute;  and  since 
their  only  subject-matter  was  to  be  official  legislation, 
it  was  unlikely  that  the  reading  public  would  feel 
the  loss.  There  was  a  Senate  with  vague  powers  of 
interpreting  the  Constitution  (its  meaning  seemed 
clear  enough) ;  but  the  Chamber  had  become  a  debili- 
tated debating-society,  and  it  was  hardly  surprising 
that  ministers  of  state  were  not  required,  were  even 
forbidden  by  statute,  to  waste  time  in  that  futile 
precinct. 

Until  an  election  could  provide  France  with  this 
noble  organ  of  legislation,  the  Prince-President 
governed  the  country  without  further  assistance. 
Legislating  by  decret-loi,  he  rapidly  cleared  the 
ground  for  the  new  system  by  elaborate  measures  of 
police ;  trade  unions  were  dissolved,  publicity  was  con- 
trolled by  an  ingenious  press  law  under  which  news- 
paper offences  were  tried  without  the  embarrassment 
of  reporters  or  a  jury,  and  the  President's  ministers 
displayed  a  complete  appreciation  of  their  own  policy 
by  directing  the  removal  from  all  buildings  of  the 
unfashionable  words  Liberte,  figalite,  Fraternite:  it 
was  time.  Their  social  programme  wore  an  expres- 
sion of  despotic  benevolence.  Governments  which 
annihilate  the  political  rights  of  their  subjects  are 
normally  solicitous  as  to  their  creature  comforts,  and 
the  decrees  of  the  Presidency  displayed  a  laudable 
anxiety  as  to  the  material  prosperity  of  France.  Rail- 
ways, electric  telegraphs,  Friendly  Societies,  land 
banks,  pawnshops,  and  all  the  apparatus  of  economic 


THE  PRESIDENT  223 

efficiency  in  the  year  1852  were  poured  from  the 
President's  cornucopia  upon  the  country  whose  insti- 
tutions he  had  silenced.  But  he  was  disinclined  to 
permit  at  this  early  stage  a  free  expression  of  opin- 
ion as  to  the  blessings  which  he  had  forced  upon  his 
countrymen.  The  election  of  the  muted  Deputies  of 
the  new  Chamber  caused  grave  misgivings,  and  the 
discreet  Morny  coached  his  Prefets  in  the  use  which 
should  be  made  of  their  'legitimate  influence.'  Those 
anxious  men  had  already  been  promoted  by  the  new 
system  to  a  position  of  black-coated  local  omnipotence 
comparable  to  Darius'  satraps  or  Cromwell's  Major- 
Generals;  their  duties  included  the  control  of  public 
opinion  by  every  form  of  censorship  and  delation,  and 
they  were  now  invited  to  tamper  discreetly  with  the 
exercise  of  the  suffrage,  to  mobilise  their  subordi- 
nates in  defence  of  the  existing  order,  and  to  give 
official  support  to  candidates  of  a  becoming  docility 
in  the  name  of  fce  gouvernement  loyal  et  paternel/ 
Preference  was  to  be  given  to  successful  business  men 
whose  practical  knowledge  was  believed  to  be  more 
valuable  to  the  state  than  the  less  reliable  activities  of 
'what  are  generally  called  politicians':  the  new 
Chamber  was  to  be  (the  ideal  has  survived)  a  parlia- 
ment of  experts  supporting  (the  conception  is  famil- 
iar) a  business  government.  This  simple-minded 
manipulation  of  the  electorate  became  a  standing 
feature  of  the  Empire ;  but  within  a  few  days  of  his 
contribution  to  political  science  Morny  left  office. 
His  retirement  was  accelerated  by  a  regrettable  apti- 
tude for  applying  official  information  to  Stock 
Exchange  transactions ;  but  a  more  dignified  pretext 
was  found  in  his  objection  to  the  predatory  policy 
which  confiscated  by  decree  the  property  of  the  late 


224  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

dynasty.  There  was  an  unpleasant  flutter  in  Paris; 
a  few  ministers  resigned,  and  someone  made  a  joke 
about  (le  premier  vol  de  I'aigle'  But  whilst  the 
susceptible  consciences  of  M.  de  Morny  and  (it 
seemed  at  Windsor  ftoo  dreadful  and  monstrous') 
Queen  Victoria  received  a  simultaneous  shock,  the 
Prince-President's  government  was  carried  on  by  the 
less  tender  intelligence  of  Persigny.  Absorbing  with 
a  heroic  gesture  the  Ministries  of  Commerce,  Agri- 
culture, and  the  Interior,  he  bluntly  urged  his  Prefets 
to  assist  their  Departments  to  return  fdeux-cent- 
soixante  et  un  deputes,  animes  du  meme  esprit, 
devoues  aux  memes  interets  et  disposes  egalement  a 
completer  la  victoire  populaire  du  20  decembre/ 

The  elections  took  place  in  a  queer  silence.  It  was 
not  easy  for  malignants  to  find  printers  to  multiply 
their  detestable  opinions  or  workers  to  distribute  them, 
and  Persigny's  wishes  were  respected  by  the  constitu- 
encies almost  to  the  letter.  The  new  Chamber  con- 
tained eight  Deputies  of  the  Opposition ;  the  rest  were 
sealed  with  the  approval  of  the  Prefets.  In  the  spring 
they  travelled  up  to  Paris.  The  President  received 
them  at  the  Tuileries  and  took  a  high  tone : 

'Depuis  trap  longtemps  la  societe  ressemblait  a  une 
pyramide  qu'on  aurait  retournee  et  voulu  faire  reposer 
sur  son  sommet;  je  I'ai  replacee  sur  sa  base/ 

But  in  1852  the  Prince  had  passed  beyond  metaphors, 
and  he  warned  his  legislature  that  if  his  authority 
was  questioned,  if  society  was  once  more  in  its  peren- 
nial need  of  being  saved,  why  then  he  would  make  a 
change : 

'11  pourrait  etre  raisonnable  de  demander  au  peuple, 
au  nom  du  repos  de  la  France,  un  nouveau  litre  qui 


THE  PRESIDENT  225 

fixdt  irrevocablement  sur  ma  tete  le  pouvoir  dont  il  m'a 
revetu.' 


There  was  a  nervous  silence,  and  the  assembled 
nonentities  went  dismally  about  their  legislative  duties 
in  the  shadow  of  the  Empire. 

That  shadow  grew  longer  as  the  summer  drew  on. 
The  Prince-President  began  to  take  the  airs  of  a 
reigning  monarch,  drove  to  great  functions  at  the 
Tuileries,  stood  in  the  Champ  de  Mars  as  the  Emperor 
had  stood,  giving  eagles  to  the  army.  Paris,  in  the 
intervals  of  seeing  the  Dame  aux  Cornelias  at  the 
Vaudeville,  was  learning  to  line  the  streets  and  cheer, 
to  make  its  bow  in  a  new  court  dress  to  the  Prince- 
President,  to  step  imperceptibly  out  of  the  Republic 
into  the  Empire.  In  the  provinces  Imperialist  peti- 
tions were  being  signed,  and  local  authorities  passed 
loyal  resolutions.  In  the  summer  the  President  opened 
his  last  railway  line  at  Strasburg;  with  an  eye  to  the 
Queen  at  Windsor  he  decorated  the  judicious  Stock- 
mar,  and  a  Colonel  von  Roon  of  the  Prussian  service 
watched  him  drive  standing  and  bare-headed  through 
the  streets.  Then  for  the  last  time  he  took  the  road 
again  with  his  suite  and  his  speeches  to  test  the  temper 
of  his  subjects.  He  said  at  the  Ely  see  that  his  tour  was 
a  question  asked  of  France.  He  knew  the  answer 
and  would  perhaps  have  been  content  to  let  it  come 
unassisted.  He  believed  in  stars  and  destiny;  but 
Persigny  was  not  above  assisting  his  faith  with  works. 
Preferring  art  to  nature,  he  prepared  a  demonstration 
with  the  instruction  to  his  Prefets:  e"L' Empire! 
Vive  I'Empereur!"  et  ne  nous  trompons  pas/  The 
cheering  crowds,  the  flags,  the  arches  overhead  were 
ordered  for  Son  Altesse  (M.  Bonaparte  was  rising  in 

IS 


226  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

the  scale),  whom  one  circular  abbreviated  by  a  felici- 
tous anticipation  of  the  Empire  into  fS.  A.  I/;  and 
when  he  faced  his  first  audience  at  Bourges,  a  general 
(after  a  word  with  the  discreet  Maupas)  took  the 
troops  by  with  a  roar  of  'Vive  I'Empereur!'  The  cry 
went  on  into  the  south,  and  at  Lyons  the  Prince- 
President  made  it  his  text,  spoke  thoughtfully  of  his 
uncle,  hesitated  to  decide  'sous  quel  nom  je  puis 
rendre  les  plus  grand  services'  Down  the  river  to  the 
sea  the  shouting  grew  louder;  all  Avignon  was  roar- 
ing on  the  walls;  Aries,  Marseilles,  Montpellier  joined 
the  dance  and  set  their  flags  waving  in  a  flutter  of 
Bonapartism.  He  was  Caesar  Imperator,  protector 
Franciae,  lapsed  into  the  vernacular  as  sauveur  de  la 
propriete  and  (le  bienvenu  dans  ce  pays  ou  Charle- 
magne et  Saint  Louis  out  regne/  Then,  as  the  cheer- 
ing died  away,  he  stood  up  in  October  to  make  his 
last  speech  at  Bordeaux.  For  a  month  he  had  lived 
in  roaring  crowds,  and  slowly,  in  his  quiet  way,  he 
explained  the  lesson.  France,  as  it  seemed,  was  grate- 
ful for  its  salvation,  tired  of  revolution,  eager  beyond 
all  else  for  confidence  and  security.  'Voila  pourquoi 
la  France  semble  vouloir  revenir  a  I'Empire.  II  est 
une  crainte  a  laquelle  je  dois  repondre.  Par  esprit 
de  defiance,  certaines  personnes  se  disent:  L' Empire, 
c'e&t  la  guerre.  Moi,  je  dis :  L} Empire  c'est  la  paix* 
Within  seven  weeks  the  President  of  the  Republic 
was  Emperor  of  the  French.  His  Senate  petitioned 
for  the  Empire.  There  was  a  faint  protest  from  the 
exiles;  but  on  November  21,  1852,  a  plebiscite  ap- 
proved the  change  by  a  majority  of  seven  millions 
and  a  half  on  a  poll  of  eight  millions :  fLe  paysan*  in 
Jules  Favre's  phrase,  'voulut  couronner  sa  legende.' 
On  a  December  night  (it  was  the  first  of  the  month, 


THE  PRESIDENT  227 

and  the  Prince  kept  as  an  anniversary  the  eve  of 
Austerlitz  and  the  coup  d'etat)  the  sentries  stood  in 
the  mist  outside  St.  Cloud.  Some  mounted  men  rode 
up  with  torches,  and  a  long  line  of  carriages  set  down 
the  men  who  were  to  tell  Louis  Napoleon  that  he  was 
Emperor.  The  Presidency  was  over.  If  it  had  run 
its  term  under  the  Constitution,  it  would  have  left 
him  in  1862  with  victories  to  his  name  and  success  for 
his  reputation ;  Maximilian  would  never  have  gone  to 
Mexico  or  Bazaine  to  Metz,  and  the  world  would  have 
missed  the  gas-lit  tragedy  of  the  Second  Empire. 


THE  EMPEROR 


229 


THE  EMPEROR 
I 

WHEN  the  curtain  went  up  on  the  Second  Empire 
and  M.  Bonaparte  became  in  1852  the  bon  Frere  of 
Queen  Victoria,  the  stage  seemed  hardly  set  for  the 
tableau.  France  had  an  Emperor,  and  he  came  riding 
down  into  Paris  through  the  Arc  de  Triomphe  on  a 
winter  morning.  Saint- Arnaud  and  Persigny  rode 
with  him,  and  they  trotted  down  the  long  hill  to 
inspect  the  troops  on  the  Carrousel  where  the  Em- 
peror had  once  taken  the  salute  on  his  white  barb, 
and  the  old  King  had  walked  his  horse  with  M.  Thiers 
at  its  head  on  a  wild  morning  in  1848.  Then  he 
dismounted  and  passed  into  the  Tuileries;  on  the 
Place  de  la  Concorde  Persigny  was  proclaiming  his 
Emperor  to  the  National  Guard.  That  evening 
Napoleon  III.  walked  through  the  rooms  of  his  new 
palace;  they  were  full  of  bowing  uniforms,  and  the 
official  world  turned  gently  on  its  axis  to  take  the 
first  beams  of  the  risen  sun. 

France  had  an  Emperor ;  but  as  yet  the  rest  of  the 
Empire  seemed  hardly  to  exist.  One  might  improvise 
a  Court  from  the  dinner-table  at  the  ^lysee.  Saint- 
Arnaud  and  Magnan  were  promoted  Marshals,  and 
the  fountain  of  honour  played  in  a  steady  drizzle  of 
decorations  over  the  public  services.  It  was  enter- 

231 


232  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

taining  enough  to  make  a  bishop  into  one's  Grand- 
Almoner  and  to  call  Vaillant,  who  had  trained  the 
guns  on  Rome,  Grand-Marshal  of  the  Palace.  The 
active  Fleury  might  seem  more  picturesque  as  Premier 
ficuyer,  and  the  Imperial  hunt  derived  and  added 
dignity  from  the  appointment  of  Marshal  Magnan  to 
be  Grand  Veneur.  The  titles  had  all  been  worn  under 
the  First  Empire,  and  they  returned  with  the  eagles 
and  the  bees  and  the  crowned  N.  Even  D'Orsay 
appeared  in  a  sinecure  having  some  relation  to  the 
fine  arts.  But  the  scene,  as  the  players  were  redressed 
for  the  new  tableau  and  the  lights  were  centred  on  the 
throne,  seemed  half  unreal,  a  great  charade  staged  by 
a  single  player  and  hanging  on  his  life,  an  Empire 
without  a  dynasty. 

Whilst  the  Emperor  drove  bowing  through  his 
streets,  twisted  a  long  moustache,  and  thought  of 
marriage,  Europe  was  looking  on.  Anxious  gentle- 
men in  Vienna  argued  that  the  second  Emperor  could 
not  be  Napoleon  III.,  turned  up  the  Treaty,  and 
pulled  long  faces  over  his  recognition,  whilst  the  Czar 
declined  to  be  the  bon  Frere  of  a  Bonaparte.  But 
the  Empire  had  returned,  and  the  Emperor  sat  won- 
dering before  the  Almanack  de  Gotha  where  he  should 
find  an  Empress.  One  could  hardly,  if  one  was  the 
eldest  son  of  the  Church,  found  a  dynasty  with  the 
blonde  Miss  Howard:  she  must  be  titled,  repaid  her 
loans,  and  ( if  the  revenue  would  run  to  it )  pensioned. 
There  had  been  an  offer  under  the  Presidency  to  a 
young  lady  in  Germany;  she  was  called  the  Princess 
Vasa,  and  Napoleon  had  dethroned  her  grandfather 
for  Bernadotte.  But  her  hand  was  promised,  and  in 
Paris  they  went  back  to  the  pedigrees.  The  Duke  of 
Cambridge  had  a  daughter;  there  was  a  Braganza 


THE  EMPEROR  233 

girl;  and  a  discreet  ambassador  in  London  was  per- 
petually asking  Lord  Malmesbury  for  the  address  of 
Princess  Adelaide  of  Hohenlohe-Langenburg.  The 
young  person  was  a  Protestant;  but  she  was  niece  to 
the  Queen  of  England,  and  a  sudden  conversion  might 
carry  an  alliance  with  it.  The  subject  trailed  away 
into  courtesies,  and  by  a  queer  chance  the  Emperor 
half  considered  a  Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.  He 
never  married  her,  and  she  lived  to  see  Count  Bis- 
marck almost  make  her  brother  King  of  Spain,  and  in 
the  attempt  bring  down  the  Empire  in  the  dull 
thunder  of  its  last  war. 


II 

PARIS  was  an  Imperial  city  once  again,  and  the 
French  army  was  the  army  of  the  Empire.  It  re- 
entered  the  long  tradition  which  had  ended  at  Water- 
loo, and  the  trumpets  which  rang  out  in  the  dawn  of 
the  Second  Empire  were  a  faint,  retarded  echo  of 
the  trumpets  of  Austerlitz.  The  new  government 
was  in  its  beginnings  a  military  government,  and  the 
army  remained  throughout  the  course  of  the  Empire 
the  most  brilliant  symbol  of  the  iridescent  transforma- 
tion which  France  had  undergone.  In  its  jaunty 
reminiscence  of  the  First  Empire,  its  elegant  protest 
against  the  dowdy  age  of  Louis  Philippe,  in  the 
swagger  of  its  easy  victories  and  the  sudden  downfall 
of  its  last  defeat  it  expressed  the  whole  temper  and 
career  of  the  Second  Empire. 

The  soldiers  of  the  First  Empire  had  been  equipped 
with  a  heavy  magnificence;  tall  bearskins,  great 
helmets  of  Dragoons,  and  the  long  lines  of  shakoes 
had  been  the  background  of  Napoleon. 

'Void  les  Mamelucks! — Tiens,  la  je  reconnais 
Les  plastrons  cramoisis  des  landers  polonais! 
Void  les  eclaireurs  culottes  d'amarante! 
Enfin,  void,  guetres  de  couleur  differente 
Les  grenadiers  de  ligne  aux  longs  plumets  tremblants 
Qui  montaient  a  I'assaut  avec  des  mollets  blancs, 
Et  les  conscrits  chasseurs  aux  pompons  verts  en  poires 
Qui  couraient  a  la  mort  avec  des  jambes  noires!' 
234 


THE  EMPEROR  235 

That  pageant  had  ended  in  1815,  and  the  Restora- 
tion hastily  redressed  the  French  army  in  uniforms 
which  avoided  so  far  as  possible  all  risk  of  dangerous 
reminiscences.  The  cavalry  assumed  an  appearance 
that  was  positively  British,  and  even  in  the  infantry 
the  rigid  propriety  of  the  Napoleonic  tradition  was 
gradually  modified  by  the  exigencies  of  service  in 
North  Africa.  The  inelegance  of  the  reign  of  Louis 
Philippe  had  found  immediate  expression  in  military 
uniform,  and  the  army  was  disguised  in  a  rather 
lumbering  gaudiness.  At  a  time  when  the  surround- 
ings of  society  were  swathed  dustily  in  red  rep,  the 
classical  red  trousers  became  universal  in  the  French 
service  and  the  slatternly  kepi  crept  into  use  from 
Algeria.  Strange  units  of  Zouaves  and  Spahis  and 
Turcos  were  beginning  to  appear  along  the  African 
border;  but  Paris  knew  little  of  the  burnous  and  the 
fez,  and  the  prosaic  flavour  of  the  age  was  neatly  con- 
veyed by  the  bourgeois  shakoes  of  the  National  Guard. 
With  the  second  advent  of  the  Empire  the  lights 
were  turned  up  on  the  military  scene,  and  the  French 
soldier  reappeared  in  a  scintillation  of  new  decora- 
tions. A  twisted  moustache  and  a  fierce  imperial 
united  with  an  ideal  of  wasp-waisted  elegance  to  give 
him  a  fresh  character,  and  he  took  the  stage  with 
panache.  The  eagle  reappeared  on  the  standards  of 
France,  and  the  bearskins  mounted  guard  once  more 
at  the  Tuileries.  The  Line  swung  past  in  red  and 
blue,  and  the  green  epaulettes  of  the  Chasseurs  d  pied 
went  by  at  the  quick  step  behind  a  clanging  bugle 
band.  Rossini  was  asked  to  compose  a  new  trumpet 
march  for  the  dandy  gentlemen  of  the  Guides;  they 
lounged  in  green  and  gold  with  blue  Hussars,  and 
the  dull  gleam  of  the  Cuirassiers  sent  the  mind  back 


236  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

to  the  pounding  charges  of  the  First  Empire.  Light 
cavalry  dangled  an  eagle  sabretache  or  trailed  a 
braided  dolman;  there  was  a  galaxy  of  helmets,  bus- 
bies, shakoes,  colbacks,  schapskas.  But  it  culminated 
in  the  blue  and  silver  magnificence  of  the  Cent-gardes, 
and  the  military  ideals  of  the  Second  Empire  found 
complete  expression  in  the  tall,  rigid  figures  which 
lined  the  stairs  of  the  Tuileries  on  grand  occasions. 
Their  great  helmets  with  the  Imperial  cypher  towered 
over  a  sea  of  rustling  guests,  and  with  the  elegance 
of  the  age  of  Offenbach  they  wore  a  uniform  of  the 
age  of  Murat. 


Ill 

ON  a  May  morning  in  Granada  the  dull  mutter  of 
an  earthquake  brought  the  people  into  the  streets. 
It  was  the  year  1826,  and  Ferdinand  VII.,  who  dis- 
played a  perfect  appreciation  of  his  time  and  place 
by  closing  a  University  and  endowing  a  school  of 
bull-fighting,  was  king  in  Spain.  Andalusia  lay  in 
the  spring  sunshine,  and  at  Granada  in  a  house  in  the 
Calle  de  Moret  opposite  Santa  Maria  Magdalena  the 
Countess  of  Teba  was  suffering.  Because  the  house 
was  not  safe,  they  took  her  out  to  a  tent  in  the  garden, 
where  a  child  was  born.  They  named  it  Eugenie 
after  an  uncle,  and  the  father  succeeded  a  few  years 
later  to  the  title  of  Monti  jo. 

The  Count  had  followed  the  tradition  of  his  country 
and  was  a  man  of  family.  He  fought  with  some  dis- 
tinction on  the  French  side  in  the  wars  of  the  First 
Empire,  and  with  the  elegant  pluralism  of  the  Spanish 
nobility  he  bore  the  surnames  of  Guzman,  Portocar- 
rero,  and  Palafox.  His  Countess,  who  was  painted 
by  Goya,  had  been  addressed  by  the  honourable 
but  simpler  name  of  Kirkpatrick.  As  his  politics 
were  a  trifle  advanced,  he  found  it  necessary  to  leave 
Spain.  A  kindly  government  detained  his  property, 
and  when  he  removed  his  lady  and  his  little  girls  to 
Paris,  their  lodgings  seemed  small  after  the  arid 
magnificence  of  a  Spanish  house.  But  they  had 
friends  in  France ;  there  was  a  M.  Merimee  who  came 

237 


238  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

to  talk  about  Spain  and  had  from  the  Countess  the 
story  of  a  Gitana  who  fascinated  a  Dragoon,  left  him 
for  an  espada  of  Seville  and  died  by  the  knife  outside 
a  bull-ring ;  and  more  than  once  he  brought  with  him 
his  friend  M.  Beyle,  who  knew  so  much  history. 
Sometimes,  when  they  were  not  learning  their  lessons 
from  the  sisters  of  the  Sacre-Coeur,  M.  Beyle  called 
and  told  them  stories  about  the  wars  of  Napoleon 
which  he  illustrated  with  the  brightest,  most  military 
little  pictures;  and  once  M.  Merimee  took  Eugenie 
down  the  Rue  de  la  Paix  to  have  a  cake  when  King 
Louis  Philippe  was  living  in  the  great  palace  at  the 
end  of  the  street. 

Whilst  they  were  all  in  Paris,  there  was  a  change  in 
Spanish  politics  and  the  Count  went  back  to  Granada. 
But  he  died  before  his  girls  had  grown  up  into  young 
ladies;  and  his  Countess  brought  them  back  across 
the  Pyrenees  to  complete  their  education  in  the  sterner 
air  of  New  Castile.  The  English  conversation  of 
Miss  Flowers  was  substituted  for  the  more  casual 
ministrations  of  M.  Beyle  and  the  sisters  of  the  Sacre- 
Coeur,  and  she  even  added  to  the  repertory  such 
literary  amenities  as  'Lalla  Rookh  and  the  Irish 
Melodies  of  Tomas  Moor.'  But  there  was  a  steady 
correspondence  with  Paris  in  which  M.  Merimee  sent 
dresses  from  Palmyre  and  Chinese  lanterns  and  seeds 
for  the  garden  by  the  embassy  bag  (which  only 
reached  the  limits  of  its  capacity  when  he  endeavoured 
to  insert  a  barouche),  receiving  in  return  mantillas 
for  his  friends  and  Spanish  bread  and  fosforos  which 
put  all  French  matches  to  shame  and  really  lit.  After 
the  Paris  lodgings  their  life  in  Spain  was  a  period 
of  greater  magnificence.  Espartero  was  still  pound- 
ing the  Carlists  in  the  north ;  but  one  could  dance  and 


THE  EMPEROR  239 

go  to  Court  and  sing  all  the  airs  from  Norma.  Paca, 
the  eldest  girl,  married  the  Duke  of  Alba;  and  M. 
Merimee's  commissions  at  the  dressmakers  increased. 
The  Countess  was  a  fine  lady,  with  her  culture  and  her 
French  friends  and  her  daughter  the  duchess;  and 
when  Eugenie  began  to  go  into  the  world,  her  mother 
had  a  great  place  at  Court  and  was  Camarera  mayor 
to  Queen  Isabella.  The  girl  was  tall  and  had  white 
shoulders,  but  her  beauty  (since  she  had  beauty)  was 
the  red  gold  of  her  hair.  Once,  when  they  were  at 
Pau,  she  heard  a  dark  lady  sing  operatic  airs  in  a 
French  drawing-room.  Deep  songs  were  always  so 
romantic;  but  the  contralto  had  her  own  romance, 
since  all  the  company  knew  that  she  had  once  plotted 
with  a  Prince — fmon  prince3  as  she  always  called  him 
— and  had  been  carried  off  to  prison.  Now  she  was 
singing  for  them,  while  her  Prince  was  a  captive  in  a 
distant  tower.  The  Gordon,  who  had  once  fascinated 
Colonel  Vaudrey,  spoke  to  the  tall  girl  and  her 
Spanish  mother,  told  them  that  the  Prince  was  lying 
helpless  at  Ham  and  that  she  was  going  to  him.  The 
girl,  whom  M.  Beyle  had  told  about  the  Emperor, 
pitied  his  nephew;  it  was  sad  to  fall  so  low;  it  would 
be  exquisitely  romantic  to  visit  him;  it  could,  it  must 
be  arranged  for  her.  The  diva  was  gracious,  and  the 
Countess  (was  she  not  a  woman  above  prejudice?) 
consented  to  the  trip.  But  Spanish  politics  swerved 
once  more  towards  revolution;  the  Monti jos  posted 
back  across  the  mountains  to  Madrid,  and  Eugenie 
never  saw  her  Prince  behind  his  bars. 

The  young  Countess  of  Teba  was  twenty-one  when 
Europe  reeled  through  the  first  months  of  1848,  and 
in  the  next  year  at  a  turn  of  the  wheel  in  Madrid 
(Narvaez  went  out  of  power,  and  there  was  a  change 


240  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

in  the  Ladies  of  the  Bedchamber)  her  mother  re- 
moved once  more  to  Paris.  Her  Prince,  if  she  still 
thought  of  him,  was  President  of  the  Republic,  and 
one  evening  a  friend  presented  them  at  the  iClysee. 
She  made  her  reverence  and  startled  her  host  with 
an  allusion,  unusual  in  the  polite  world,  to  the  faith- 
ful Gordon.  Followed  a  little  dinner  on  a  summer 
evening  at  St.  Cloud.  It  was  laid  for  four  at  a  small 
lodge  in  the  park;  but  when  the  President  offered 
his  arm  for  a  stroll  in  the  evening,  Eugenie  held  back 
and  bowed  him  to  her  mother.  The  invitation  was 
not  repeated;  but  the  Spanish  girl  was  seen  about 
Paris  under  the  Republic;  and  when  society  resumed 
after  its  salvation,  she  was  asked  to  Fontainebleau  and 
Compiegne  for  the  hunting.  The  girl  looked  well  on 
horseback,  and  the  Prince  began  to  ride  by  her  side, 
to  watch  her  in  the  evenings,  to  talk  to  her  sometimes 
about  his  future.  The  ladies  of  his  circle  used  their 
tongues,  and  in  the  dawn  of  the  Empire  a  spiteful 
word  sent  her  almost  sobbing  to  the  Emperor  at  a 
supper-table  in  the  Tuileries.  That  night  Eugenie 
and  her  mother  packed  their  trunks  for  Italy;  but 
in  the  morning  a  letter  from  the  palace  asked  for 
an  Empress,  and  before  the  month  was  out,  they 
married  at  Notre  Dame.  The  doubts  of  Princess 
Adelaide,  who  had  been  fluttering  at  Langenburg 
in  a  delightful  uncertainty,  were  sharply  solved.  The 
Emperor  had  eluded  a  bride  of  the  indeterminate 
nationality  affected  by  German  royalty,  and  in  Lord 
Palmerston's  view  he  had  chosen  well  since  'he  had 
no  chance  of  a  political  alliance  of  any  value,  or  of 
sufficient  importance  to  counterbalance  the  annoy- 
ance of  an  ugly  or  epileptic  wife  whom  he  had  never 
seen  till  she  was  presented  to  him  as  a  bride.'  France 


THE  EMPEROR  241 

was  informed  early  in  1853  that  the  Emperor  had 
made  his  choice  'en  conservant  son  caractere  propre 
et  en  prenant  franchement  vis-a-vis  de  I'Europe  la 
position  de  parvenu,  litre  glorieusc  lorsquon  parvient 
par  le  libre  suffrage  d'un  grand  peuple/  Miss 
Howard  withdrew  into  the  nobility  of  the  Empire  as 
a  countess,  and  the  costumiers  settled  down  to  the 
agreeable  preparations  for  an  Imperial  wedding.  M. 
Merimee  drafted  a  wonderful  marriage  contract  with 
an  interminable  recital  of  his  young  friend's  dignities 
and  quarterings,  and  Felix  wrestled  with  the  problems 
of  coiffure  presented  by  a  veil,  a  wreath  of  orange 
blossoms  and  an  Imperial  crown.  On  a  clear  day 
of  winter  sunshine  they  drove  across  Paris  to  Notre 
Dame.  The  Empress  looked  pale  in  the  great  vault 
hung  with  velvet  and  banked  with  flowers.  There 
was  a  blaze  of  gold  and  candle-light,  a  band  crashed 
out  the  march  from  the  Prophete,  and  it  all  seemed 
to  Lady  Augusta  Bruce  'like  a  Poet's  Vision.'  That 
night  they  drove  to  a  little  house  at  St.  Cloud,  and 
in  the  morning  two  people  rode  out  in  a  phaeton  on 
the  road  to  Trianon.  The  lady  beside  the  driver  had 
a  queer  taste  for  memories  of  Marie  Antoinette,  and 
her  husband  drove  happily  along  in  the  frosty  sun- 
shine. He  had  found  a  leading  lady  for  his  strange 
play,  and  the  cast  for  the  Second  Empire  was 
complete. 


16 


IV 


IT  is  the  tragedy  of  Napoleon  III.  that  he  did  not 
die  until  twenty  years  after  his  life  had  lost  its 
purpose.  He  had  lived,  since  he  came  of  age,  by 
the  light  of  a  single  star  which  shone  above  the 
Tuileries  and  would  make  him,  as  he  believed, 
Emperor  of  the  French.  The  steady  gleam  of  it, 
first  seen  above  the  hills  in  Switzerland,  then  dancing 
bright  above  Strasburg,  faintly  visible  in  the  night 
sky  over  New  York,  then  lighting  a  room  in  London, 
and  shining  through  a  barred  window  at  Ham,  had 
drawn  him  across  the  world  to  France.  He  followed 
it;  and  at  forty-five,  a  pallid  man  with  dull  eyes,  he 
was  Emperor  of  the  French  and  the  husband  of  a 
beautiful  woman.  But  the  star  flickered  and  failed, 
since  on  attaining  his  purpose  he  had  lost  it:  it  was 
the  tragedy  of  an  arriviste  who  arrived. 

In  his  odd,  silent  way,  behind  the  dull  mask  and 
the  great  moustache,  the  man  had  known  he  would 
be  king.  Since  it  was  pre-ordained,  his  actions  were 
unhurried,  and  he  said  always,  'II  ne  faut  rien 
brusquer.'  He  had  seen  a  man  follow  his  destiny  out 
of  exile,  out  of  prison,  to  a  predestined  throne;  and 
he  was  left  with  a  queer  faith  in  predestination.  He 
had  followed  a  star;  and  a  King,  a  Republic,  and 
seven  millions  of  men  had  gone  down  before  the 
inevitable  event.  But  he  knew  nothing  more  of  the 
future.  It  was  written,  and  a  wise  man  would  watch 

242 


THE  EMPEROR  243 

the  slow  movement  of  events  without  thrusting  rashly 
across  the  stream.  His  attitude  was  always  that  of  a 
man  who,  in  his  own  phrase,  'attend  un  evenementS 
'I  never  form  distant  plans,'  he  once  told  a  king's 
secretary,  'I  am  governed  by  the  exigencies  of  the 
moment.'  It  was  an  odd  confession;  yet  it  was  the 
wisdom  of  a  man  who  had  seen  one  thing  happen 
inevitably  and  was  left  with  a  belief  that  all  things 
were  inevitable.  The  world  thought  him  designing. 
Palmerston  warned  Gladstone  that  he  was  'an  able, 
active,  wary,  counsel-keeping  but  ever-planning  sover- 
eign.' An  ambassador  in  Paris  was  even  informed  by 
his  jaunty  minister  that  'the  Emperor's  mind  seems 
as  full  of  schemes  as  a  warren  is  full  of  rabbits.'  But 
he  made  few  plans ;  he  was  indifferent  in  the  choice  of 
men  to  act  for  him,  because  he  believed  that  without 
plans  or  men  that  which  was  written  would  come  to 
pass ;  and  when  it  came,  he  faced  it  quietly,  saying  as 
he  had  said  to  a  Carlist  prince,  'Quand  le  vin  est  tire, 
dl  faut  le  boire.J  So  it  was  that  for  twenty  years  he 
seemed  to  drift,  since  it  was  useless  to  strive  against 
the  stream;  a  sphinx,  since  he  answered  no  questions; 
an  enigma  to  the  world,  since  his  own  intentions  were 
an  enigma  to  himself. 

He  had  been  a  man  of  one  idea;  and  when  it  was 
accomplished,  he  was  left  without  one.  It  was  as 
though  a  man  should  climb  a  ridge  of  high  hills  and 
then  have  no  direction  for  the  great  walk  along  the 
summits.  Yet  there  was  one  principle  which  seemed 
to  gleam  vaguely  through  his  opportunism.  He  still 
believed,  as  he  had  written  in  1839,  that  the  world 
should  be  made  up  of  free  nations,  and  he  was  haunted 
through  his  policy  by  a  half-formed  idea  (had  he  not 
trained  Italian  guns  against  the  Papalim  in  1831?) 


244  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

that  Italy  must  be  freed  by  a  Bonaparte.  'Tell  them,' 
he  had  said  to  a  woman  in  1848,  'that  my  name  is 
Bonaparte,  and  that  I  feel  the  responsibilities  which 
that  name  implies.  Italy  is  dear  to  me,  as  dear  almost 
as  France,  but  my  duties  to  France  passent  avant  tout. 
I  must  watch  for  an  opportunity.  For  the  present  I 
am  controlled  by  the  Assembly,  which  will  not  give  me 
money  and  men  for  a  war  of  sentiment,  in  which 
France  has  no  direct  immediate  interest.  But  tell 
them  that  my  feelings  are  now  what  they  were  in 
1830,  and  repeat  to  them  that  my  name  is  Bonaparte.' 
But  Italy  was  not  in  play  in  1853,  and  the  Empire 
drifted  into  its  first  war  without  even  the  guidance 
of  a  sentimental  instinct.  The  polite  world  of  Paris 
was  busy  table-turning  ( and  the  Austrian  ambassador 
was  gravely  confiding  this  outbreak  to  his  diary) 
when  the  long  cloud  of  the  Eastern  Question  showed 
above  the  horizon  and  climbed  slowly  up  the  European 
sky.  The  Nineteenth  Century,  which  was  in  so  few 
respects  an  age  of  faith,  believed  passionately  in  the 
power  of  Russia.  This  singular  faith,  which  was 
handed  on  unimpaired  to  deceive  a  later  generation, 
found  various  expressions.  At  St.  Petersburg  it 
produced  an  exaggerated  truculence ;  in  Paris,  where 
oriental  affairs  had  been  a  French  hobby  ever  since 
the  Most  Christian  King  had  sought  the  alliance  of 
the  Grand  Turk,  it  set  men  watching  the  Near  East 
with  a  jealous  eye;  and  in  London,  since  Leadenhall 
Street  was  in  London  and  India  was  governed  from 
Leadenhall  Street,  it  sent  a  shudder  through  patriotic 
statesmen  at  every  lurch  forward  in  that  sprawling 
advance  which  was  described  in  serious  circles  as  the 
expansion  of  Russia.  The  new  master  of  French 
policy  was  indisposed  to  take  the  Russian  side,  since 


, 
'J 


Copyright  of  His  Majesty  King  George  V 

The  Empress  Eugenie 
From  a  miniature  by  Ross  at  Windsor  Castle 


THE  EMPEROR  245 

he  valued  English  friendship  and  could  strike  a 
Napoleonic  attitude  by  defying  the  Cossacks.  He 
might  even  appear  in  his  favourite  character  of  a  son 
of  the  Church  by  supporting  the  Catholics  of  Pales- 
tine against  the  Orthodox  priests;  and  a  slow  debate 
developed  in  which  judicious  Moslems  at  Constanti- 
nople held  the  scale  between  the  French  and  Russian 
conceptions  of  Christian  duty  at  the  Holy  Places. 
But  the  issues  were  sharply  broadened.  Early  in 
1853  the  Czar  was  at  an  evening  party,  and  he  spoke 
mysteriously  to  the  British  ambassador  about  Turkey 
in  the  metaphor  (there  is  something  deeply  impressive 
about  the  birth  of  a  cliche)  of  a  sick  man — 'nous  avons 
sur  les  bras  un  homme  malade,  ce  serait  un  grand 
malheur  s'il  devait  nous  echapper  avant  que  les  dis- 
positions necessaires  fussent  prises'  It  was  his  ami- 
able intention  to  absorb  the  Balkans,  whilst  England 
was  to  be  satisfied  with  Egypt.  But  the  ministers  of 
Queen  Victoria  were  unequal  to  this  dramatic  con- 
ception of  haute  poUtique  as  an  intrigue  of  highly 
placed  persons  carried  on  in  whispers  at  a  soiree.  It 
might  have  flattered  the  richer  imagination  of  Mr. 
Disraeli  to  partition  Turkey  in  an  exchange  of 
metaphors  with  a  Romanoff*  But  he  was  out  of 
office;  and  the  colder  intelligence  of  Lord  John  Rus- 
sell was  unimpressed  by  the  prospect.  A  little  stiffly 
the  Englishmen  refused  the  invitation  to  conspire,  and 
the  Czar  was  left  alone  in  the  sick-room.  As  the  year 
drew  on,  he  became  assiduous  in  his  attendance  at  the 
Turkish  bedside.  Two  army  corps  were  mobilised  in 
South  Russia,  and  a  truculent  ambassador  appeared 
in  Constantinople  with  instructions  to  find  a  casus 
belli.  At  the  French  Embassy  a  nervous  charge 
d'affaires  named  Benedetti  (one  can  see  moving  in 


246  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

the  clear  dawn  of  the  Second  Empire  the  little  figure 
which  was  to  cast  so  long  a  shadow  as  the  evening  sun 
went  down  over  Ems)  sent  long  reports  to  Paris, 
whilst  bland  Russians  demanded  from  the  Sultan  a 
protectorate  over  his  Christian  subjects.  The  Turks 
refused,  and  Europe  was  alarmed.  In  the  summer  a 
Russian  army  passed  the  Turkish  frontier,  and  with 
a  vague  gesture  of  protection  a  Franco-British  fleet 
anchored  in  Besika  Bay.  The  ikons  were  brought  out 
in  St.  Petersburg;  harassed  gentlemen  posted  across 
Europe  with  clever  drafts ;  and  there  was  a  slow  drift 
towards  war,  while  Princess  Lieven  was  left  lament- 
ing among  her  screens  in  Paris,  'Mais  cest  embetant 
ca;  c'est  detestable,  et  tout  pour  a  few  Grik  Prists!' 
But  in  the  heat  of  the  larger  questions  the  world  had 
forgotten  the  little  issue  about  Palestine.  It  was 
settled  or  adjourned,  and  France  was  aligned  with 
England  in  defence  of  Turkey  against  the  sudden 
aggression  of  the  Czar.  The  Sultan  seemed  so  help- 
less, and  men  began  to  feel  almost  chivalrous  about 
the  Bashi-Bazouks.  Late  in  the  year  a  Russian  fleet 
used  its  guns  in  the  Black  Sea,  and  the  Allies  passed 
the  Dardanelles.  Lord  Palmerston  scandalised  Mr. 
Bright  with  a  jaunty  speech  at  the  Reform  Club; 
Napoleon  curtly  ordered  the  Russian  troops  out  of 
Turkish  territory ;  and  in  March  1854,  the  diplomatists 
were  hurried  into  the  wings  and  the  curtain  went 
slowly  up  on  the  Crimean  War. 

Whilst  the  Queen  was  enjoying  the  spectacle  of 
her  departing  Guards  from  a  balcony  at  Buckingham 
Palace,  the  Army  of  the  East  formed  unhurriedly  in 
the  southern  ports  of  France.  It  was  unmistakably 
the  army  of  the  coup  d'etat,  since  Canrobert  had  a 
division  and  Saint- Arnaud  was  in  command.  But 


THE  EMPEROR  247 

there  was  a  faint  omen  of  the  future  in  the  name  of  a 
Colonel  on  the  Staff:  he  was  a  dark  man  called 
Trochu,  and  he  waited  for  sixteen  years  until  in  the 
last  scene  of  all  he  commanded  a  starving  city  against 
the  Prussians  and  had,  had  always  (and  never  acted 
upon)  a  plan.  In  the  summer  weather  of  1854  the 
white  sails  of  the  transports  went  eastwards  beyond 
Italy  and  the  headlands  of  Greece  and  faded  into  the 
Levant.  At  Paris  the  Emperor  was  conversing 
gravely  with  the  Duke  of  Cambridge  and  impressing 
that  ripe  intelligence  that  he  'never  would  say  what 
he  did  not  mean.'  At  the  turn  of  the  year  the  armies 
began  to  silt  slowly  into  the  Black  Sea  by  way  of 
Gallipoli  and  Varna,  and  the  Queen  desired  her  Prime 
Minister  to  convey  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
her  view  that  a  special  form  of  prayer  for  the  cholera 
was  'not  a  sign  of  gratitude  or  confidence  in  the 
Almighty'  and  was  distinctly  undesirable.  The  Prince 
Consort  was  considering  an  invitation  to  visit  the 
Emperor  of  the  French  in  his  camp  behind  Boulogne ; 
Baron  Stockmar  was  favourable  to  the  idea;  and  on 
a  fine  morning  in  the  first  week  of  September  Mr. 
Dickens  listened  to  the  French  salutes,  as  the  royal 
yacht  steamed  up  the  harbour,  'the  Prince,  in  a  blazing 
uniform,  left  alone  on  the  deck  for  everybody  to  see — 
a  stupendous  silence,  and  then  such  an  infernal  blaz- 
ing and  banging  as  never  was  heard.'  The  two  men 
met  at  the  foot  of  the  gangway,  and  Prince  Albert 
was  hurried  off  into  a  round  of  inspections  and  reviews 
which  were  all  narrated  to  the  Queen  in  letters  written 
in  the  intervals  of  changing  uniforms.  The  Imperial 
entourage  alarmed  the  Prince  a  little  by  its  'ton  de 
garnison,  with  a  good  deal  of  smoking,'  and  even  the 
Emperor  took  part  in  these  excesses  after  dinner, 


248  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

when  'I  withdrew  with  him  to  his  sitting-room  for 
half  an  hour  before  rejoining  his  guests,  in  order  that 
he  might  smoke  his  cigarette,  in  which  occupation,  to 
his  amazement,  I  could  not  keep  him  company.'  But 
in  spite  of  this  indulgence  (and  a  bed  that  was  too 
short  for  his  guest)  Napoleon  made  a  favourable  im- 
pression. He  was  examined  viva  voce  upon  every 
branch  of  royal  accomplishment  from  reformatories 
to  finance,  and  his  answers  in  the  French  and  English 
languages  satisfied  his  examiner  and  left  him  fim 
ganzen  recht  zufrieden  mit  ihm.'  The  Prince  was 
charmed  to  detect  a  German  accent  in  his  speech  and, 
almost,  in  his  thought.  The  Emperor  won  his  heart 
with  reminiscences  of  the  Gymnasium  at  Augsburg 
and  a  recitation  from  Schiller;  he  even  confessed  with 
emotion  that  the  sight  of  Queen  Victoria  open- 
ing Parliament  in  1837  had  been  one  of  the  great  im- 
pressions of  his  life.  At  the  same  time  the  judicious 
host,  controlling  his  raptures  sufficiently  to  commit 
them  to  paper,  informed  the  proud  wife  at  Windsor 
of  his  happiness  in  the  company  of  fun  Prince  aussi 
accompli,  un  Tiomme  done  de  quaUtes  si  seduisantes  et 
de  connaissances  si  profondesS  The  charm,  of  which 
Lord  Beaconsfield  was  one  day  to  learn  the  secret, 
began  to  work.  The  royal  meeting,  which  provoked 
leader-writers  to  moralise  on  the  strangeness  of 
Napoleonic  courtesies  at  the  Camp  of  Boulogne,  was 
a  profound  success.  Punch,  with  that  ineptitude 
which  had  not  yet  become  a  tradition,  depicted  a 
convivial  scene  between  the  two  princes  en  garcon; 
and  the  strange  friendship  grew,  as  the  Allied  armies 
landed  in  the  Crimea  to  begin  the  war  which  had  been 
six  months  declared. 

Winter  shut  down  on  the  trenches  before  Sebas- 


THE  EMPEROR  249 

topol,  and  in  Jersey  M.  Victor  Hugo  made  a  bitter 
sneer  at  'I'Empire  qui  recommence  par  1812.'  Saint- 
Arnaud  had  died  almost  in  the  saddle  at  the  Alma, 
and  Canrobert  was  in  command ;  Lord  Raglan's  army 
had  fought  its  way  into  popular  recitation  at  Balak- 
lava,  and  the  Guards  went  in  with  the  bayonet  at 
Inkerman.  The  Emperor  (had  he  not  studied  siege- 
warfare  in  his  cell  at  Ham?)  became  critical;  his 
observations  were  much  admired  at  the  Tuileries,  and 
Imperial  hints  on  gunnery  followed  one  another  by 
every  mail  to  the  Crimea.  General  Niel  went  out  as 
his  deputy;  perhaps,  if  the  Allies  could  agree,  the 
Emperor  would  follow  to  take  the  command  himself. 
Then,  as  the  winter  mist  hung  over  the  starving, 
freezing  camps,  there  was  an  odd  revival  of 
diplomacy;  statesmen  got  out  their  orders  and  took 
their  red  boxes  to  Vienna;  couriers  came  posting 
in  from  St.  Petersburg  with  clever  arguments  from 
Prince  Gortschakoff ;  and  Piedmont,  which  had  no 
interest  in  the  war  except  as  a  means  of  publicity  for 
a  new  power,  joined  the  Allies,  whilst  Canrobert  was 
fumbling  round  the  outworks  of  Sebastopol. 

In  the  spring  of  1855,  as  the  guns  were  still  playing 
on  the  Russian  lines,  Napoleon  resumed  his  inter- 
national courtesies  and  steamed  into  British  waters 
at  Dover  through  a  fog  believed  by  his  subjects  to  be 
perennial  in  those  latitudes.  The  Empress  was  with 
him ;  and  as  they  drove  across  London  to  Paddington, 
he  showed  her  the  corner  of  King  Street  where  his 
house  had  been.  At  Windsor  the  cheers  died  away, 
and  they  passed  into  the  domestic  silence  of  the  royal 
circle,  'Vicky  with  very  alarmed  eyes  making  very 
low  curtsies.'  Upstairs  there  was  a  panic  before 
dinner,  because  the  Imperial  trousseau  had  not  ar- 


250  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

rived.  But  someone  had  a  blue  silk  dress;  it  might 
be  made  to  fit,  and  wild-eyed  women  knelt  stitching 
round  the  Empress.  Half  England  was  standing 
uneasily  in  its  best,  when  Eugenie  swept  down  to 
dinner  in  her  plain  blue  dress  with  a  single  flower  in 
her  pale  bronze  hair:  it  was  a  French  victory.  The 
Emperor  was  charming  to  his  hostess,  smiling  vaguely 
and  speaking  low.  It  was  the  first  time  in  all  her 
acquaintance  with  countless  half -educated,  clanking, 
military  persons  from  the  Courts  of  Europe  that  she 
had  met  a  monarch  who  was  also  a  gentleman,  and 
the  encounter  left  her  strangely  fascinated.  He  was 
odd,  of  course.  There  was  that  queer  'reliance  on 
what  he  calls  his  Star,  and  a  belief  in  omens  and 
incidents  as  connected  with  his  future  destiny,  which 
is  almost  romantic,'  a  strange  faith  'in  the  realisation 
of  hopes  entertained  from  his  very  childhood,  which 
borders  on  the  supernatural.'  But  he  was  a  most 
attractive  person;  and  he  spoke,  one  feels  that  he 
took  care  to  speak,  so  charmingly  of  the  dear  country 
to  which  neither  he  nor  his  hostess  owed  official  allegi- 
ance :  'the  Emperor  is  as  unlike  a  Frenchman  as  pos- 
sible, being  much  more  German  than  French  in 
character  ...  he  is  very  well  read  in  German  litera- 
ture, to  which  he  seemed  to  be  very  partial.'  The 
sharp  little  pen  seemed  to  lose  all  its  primness  when 
it  summed  him  up  in  an  ecstasy  of  underlinings : 

"That  he  is  a  very  extraordinary  man,  with  great  qualities 
there  can  be  no  doubt — I  might  almost  say  a  mysterious 
man.  He  is  evidently  possessed  of  indomitable  courage, 
unflinching  firmness  of  purpose,  self-reliance,  perseverance, 
and  great  secrecy  .  .  .  and  at  the  same  time  he  is  endowed 
with  wonderful  self-control,  great  calmness,  even  gentleness, 
and  with  a  power  of  fascination,  the  effect  of  which  upon 


THE  EMPEROR  251 

all  those  who  become  more  intimately  acquainted  with  him  is 
most  sensibly  felt. 

How  far  he  is  actuated  by  a  strong  moral  sense  of  right 
and  wrong  is  difficult  to  say.  .  .  .' 

The  Queen  sat  wondering  at  her  writing-table. 
And  yet 

'My  impression  is,  that  in  all  these  apparently  inex- 
cusable acts,  he  has  invariably  been  guided  by  the  belief 
that  he  is  fulfilling  a  destiny  which  God  has  imposed  upon 
him,  and  that,  though  cruel  or  harsh  in  themselves,  they 
were  necessary  to  obtain  the  result  which  he  considered  him- 
self as  chosen  to  carry  out,  and  not  acts  of  wanton  cruelty 
or  injustice;  for  it  is  impossible  to  know  him,  and  not  to  see 
that  there  is  much  that  is  truly  amiable,  kind,  and  honest  in 
his  character.  .  .  . 

How  could  it  be  expected  that  the  Emperor  should 
have  any  experience  in  public  affairs,  considering  that  till 
six  years  ago  he  lived  as  a  poor  exile,  for  some  years  even 
in  prison,  and  never  having  taken  the  slightest  part  in  the 
public  affairs  of  any  country?  It  is  therefore  the  more 
astounding,  indeed  almost  incomprehensible,  that  he  should 
show  all  those  powers  of  Government  and  all  that  wonderful 
tact  in  his  conduct  and  manners  which  he  evinces,  and 
which  many  a  King's  son,  nurtured  in  palaces,  and  edu- 
cated in  the  midst  of  affairs  never  succeeds  in  attaining.' 

It  was  a  strange,  dazzled  verdict  with  its  doubts  and 
its  excuses  and  its  little  gasps  of  admiration.  But 
then  Napoleon  was  a  gentleman,  and  amongst  her 
equals  the  Queen  had  met  little  except  royalty. 

For  a  week  Napoleon  and  Victoria,  Albert  and 
Eugenie  walked  a  ceremonial  minuet  at  Windsor. 
There  was  a  review  in  the  Great  Park  and  a  ball  in 
the  Waterloo  Room.  The  Emperor  of  the  French 
danced  a  quadrille  with  the  little  Queen,  and  Mr. 
Disraeli  enjoyed  the  rare  delight  of  making  seven 


252  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

reverences  in  his  Court  suit,  each  time  to  a  different 
royal  personage.  Then  they  held  a  council  of  war 
in  the  Emperor's  room  to  dissuade  him  from  going 
to  the  Crimea  and  imposing  that  unity  of  command 
which  is  so  distasteful  to  Allies;  and  afterwards  the 
Queen  came  knocking  at  the  door,  and  there  was  an 
investiture  of  the  Garter,  with  Napoleon  wearing  the 
blue  ribbon  on  his  wrong  shoulder  and  saying  'Enfin 
je  suis  gentilhomme.3  One  evening  they  all  went  to 
the  opera  and  heard  Fidelia,  and  in  the  morning 
someone  said  it  was  the  Emperor's  birthday:  his 
hostess  crowned  her  hospitality  with  the  gift  of  a 
pencil-case  and  took  him  to  see  the  Crystal  Palace 
in  its  new  home  at  Sydenham.  His  lady  had  been 
charming,  and  the  children  loved  her.  Sometimes 
(her  origin  might  have  led  one  to  expect  it)  she  was 
found  sitting  on  the  edge  of  a  table.  But  the  Queen 
thought  her  'very  pretty  and  very  uncommon-looking,' 
although  Mr.  Disraeli  confided  to  one  of  his  old  ladies 
his  disappointment  with  her  'Chinese  eyes  and  a  per- 
petual smile  or  simper  which  I  detest.'  But  the  week 
came  slowly  to  an  end:  the  Emperor  recorded  in  the 
Queen's  album  'le  sentiments  qu'on  eprouve  pour  une 
reine  et  pour  une  sceur'-,  and  as  the  escort  jingled  off, 
she  was  left  'quite  wehmuthig/ 

Eastwards  across  Europe  the  guns  were  booming 
before  Sebastopol.  Canrobert  resigned  to  Pelissier; 
but  the  Russians  still  held  Malakoff  and  the  Redan, 
and  in  August  the  Italians  paid  their  footing  in  the 
war  on  the  Tchernaya.  Two  days  later  the  Emperor 
stepped  out  into  the  sunlight  on  the  balcony  of  a 
hotel  at  Boulogne.  Queen  Victoria  and  her  Consort 
were  at  sea,  and  their  host  stood  looking  for  the 
British  colours  above  the  skyline.  Then  he  rode  up 


THE  EMPEROR  253 

to  the  high  ground  behind  the  town  and  down  again; 
the  yacht  came  steaming  into  harbour,  and  a  royal 
train  went  up  the  line  to  Paris.  It  was  evening  before 
they  drove  into  the  roaring  streets ;  and  the  bells  and 
the  crowds  and  the  Allied  flags  and  the  bands  playing 
God  save  the  Queen  all  seemed  'quite  feenhaft'  to  the 
little  lady  in  the  open  carriage.  Then  there  was  a  blaze 
of  lights,  and  the  new  Imperial  Guard  was  presenting 
arms  at  St.  Cloud ;  the  Empress  was  at  the  door,  'the 
dear  and  very  charming  Empress  (whom  Albert  likes 
particularly),'  and  the  Second  Empire  seemed 
canonised  into  dynastic  respectability  by  the  approval 
of  its  solemn  guests.  There  were  drives  to  Neuilly — 
'poor  Neuilly' — where  the  Queen  sat  beside  a  Bona- 
parte and  saw  the  ruins  of  an  Orleans  palace,  and  an 
excursion  through  the  streets  of  Paris,  with  the 
Emperor  there  to  point  out  the  Conciergerie  and  say 
so  romantically  'Voila  oil  j'etais  en  prison'  Or  one 
could  sit  sketching  the  Zouaves  at  Versailles,  whilst 
a  military  band  played  its  very  best ;  and  one  day  there 
was  a  fascinating  visit  to  Paris  incognito  to  see  the 
sights,  with  Vicky  in  a  bonnet  and  mantilla,  and  her 
mother  recognisable  by  every  Parisian  in  her  white 
English  dress  and  her  green  parasol  and  sandals  tied 
with  black  ribbons  across  the  ankle.  In  the  evenings 
they  heard  Alboni  at  the  Opera,  or  went  to  great 
parties,  where  the  Queen  wore  the  Koh-i-noor  in  her 
hair,  or  sat  next  to  General  Canrobert  in  her  geranium 
dress  and  could  ask  him  about  the  war  and  tell  him 
all  about  Albert  in  his  green  uniform;  and  once  in 
the  Galerie  des  Glaces  she  was  introduced  to  a  tall 
gentleman  from  Prussia  named  von  Bismarck,  who 
said  behind  his  great  moustache  that  Paris  was  'sogar 
schoner  als  Petersburg.'  But  sometimes  they  went 


254  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

quite  alone  in  the  evening  to  a  'nice  vertrauliches  little 
dinner'  with  the  Emperor,  and  afterwards  he  'repeated 
with  Albert  all  kinds  of  old  German  songs,  and  Albert 
repeated  some  to  him.'  Then  there  was  the  Exhibi- 
tion to  be  visited,  and  a  great  review  in  the  Champ  de 
Mars  with  'Bertie  in  his  full  Highland  dress,'  and  a 
queer  evening  visit  to  the  Invalides  where  tall  old  men 
held  up  torches  and  the  thunder  rolled  outside,  as 
the  organ  muttered  its  way  through  God  save  the 
Queen,  and  the  Emperor  of  the  French  stood  with  the 
Queen  of  England  by  Napoleon's  grave.  One  day 
it  was  Albert's  birthday,  and  his  sovereign  presented 
him  with  a  pictorial  set  of  'Alliance  and  Crimean 
studs,  the  third  button  having  a  blank,  I  hope,  for 
Sebastopol,'  whilst  his  host  avenged  the  pencil-case 
of  Windsor  with  the  gift  of  a  Meissonier  called  'La 
Jlixe!  It  was  all  wonderful ;  the  Emperor  was  Very 
fascinating,  with  that  great  quiet  and  gentleness' ;  and 
when  it  was  over  and  they  were  back  again  at  Osborne, 
Baron  Stockmar  was  informed  of  his  'power  of 
attaching  those  to  him  who  come  near  him  and  know 
him,  which  is  quite  incredible/  Was  he  not  'quite 
The  Emperor,  and  yet  in  no  way  playing  it?'  Had 
he  not  gone  over  old  German  airs  with  Albert?  Were 
not  the  children  devoted  to  their  kind  new  friend? 
It  was  the  first  and  the  most  unexpected  conquest  of 
the  Empire.  In  a  few  days  it  had  its  second,  as  the 
Russians  marched  out  in  the  falling  dusk  over  the  long 
bridge  to  the  north,  and  in  the  seventh  month  the 
firing  died  away  round  Sebastopol. 


THE  Second  Empire  was  essentially  Parisian ;  and  as 
the  war  with  Russia  trailed  away  into  incoherence, 
Paris  once  more  became  the  centre  of  the  world.  The 
crowds  went  by  in  the  Champs  Elysees  to  see  the 
Exhibition,  and  the  billowy  proliferation  of  the  crino- 
line was  beginning  to  undulate  in  the  imagination  of 
M.  Constantin  Guys,  whilst  the  harassed  bourgeois  of 
the  comic  papers  stepped  warily  round  its  outer  edges. 
The  sightseers  stood  staring  at  the  marvels  of  science 
in  the  Palais  de  1'Industrie;  but  it  was  all  a  shade 
more  modish,  a  thought  less  improving,  than  the 
gleaming  monument  of  good  intentions  with  which 
Prince  Albert  had  obliterated  Hyde  Park  four  years 
before.  It  was  a  rustling  age  of  millinery  and  dance- 
music.  At  Fontainebleau  some  one  turned  the  handle 
of  a  mechanical  organ  as  the  couples  swung  round  the 
ball-room,  because,  as  the  Emperor  said,  an  orchestra 
is  so  awkward:  rlls  racontent  ce  qu'ils  ont  vu  ou  ce 
quits  n'ont  pas  vu/  They  danced  at  Court  or  posed 
in  fancy  dress  for  M.  Gavarni  to  draw  them.  They 
danced  at  the  Ball  Mabille  and  Valentino,  and  the 
town  was  beginning  to  sway  to  the  measure  which 
swung  and  quickened  and  rose  until  the  Second 
Empire  danced  to  an  air  of  Offenbach  out  of  the  gas- 
light into  the  cruel  sunshine  of  1870. 

At  the  Tuileries  a  lovely  lady  with  sad,  sloping 
eyebrows  and  a  strange  smile  sat  at  innumerable 
angles  to  M.  Winterhalter,  whose  kindly  imagination 

£55 


256  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

had  peopled  the  thrones  of  Europe  with  a  race  of 
beauties.  But  Eugenie  had  not  inherited  the  accumu- 
lated ugliness  of  a  dynasty;  and  as  she  sat  amongst 
her  ladies,  he  hardly  needed,  he  almost  forgot  to 
flatter.  She  was  still  beautiful,  and  as  her  husband 
saw  her  on  a  great  staircase,  all  in  white  with  leaves  of 
grass  on  her  ball  dress  and  a  glitter  of  diamonds  on 
the  tour  de  corsage,  he  could  say  loud  enough  for  the 
Queen  of  England  to  hear:  fComme  tu  es  belle!' 

Even  the  Emperor  was  a  man  of  fashion,  as  he 
drove  his  curricle  through  the  streets  and  smiled 
behind  his  great  moustache.  He  had  held  his  own  at 
Lady  Blessington's ;  and  now  the  world  began  to 
study  the  cut  of  his  beard,  until  Mr.  Trollope  was 
exasperated  by  'that  mould  into  which  so  large  a 
proportion  of  Parisians  of  the  present  day  force  their 
heads,  in  order  that  they  may  come  out  with  some  look 
of  the  Emperor  about  them.  Were  there  not  some 
such  machine  as  this  in  operation,  it  would  be  impos- 
sible that  so  many  Frenchmen  should  appear  with 
elongated,  angular,  hard  faces,  all  as  like  each  other 
as  though  they  were  brothers.  The  cut  of  the  beard, 
the  long,  prickly-ended,  clotted  moustache,  which 
looks  as  though  it  were  being  continually  rolled  up  in 
saliva,  the  sallow,  half-bronzed,  apparently  un- 
washed colour — these  may  all  perhaps  be  assumed  by 
any  man  after  a  certain  amount  of  labour  and  culture. 
But  how  has  it  come  to  pass  that  every  Parisian  has 
been  able  to  obtain  for  himself  a  pair  of  the  Emperor's 
long,  hard,  bony,  cruel-looking  cheeks,  no  Englishman 
has  yet  been  able  to  guess.'  The  mystery  was 
deepened  for  all  readers  of  Punch  by  the  diverting  fun 
which  Mr.  Leech  and  Mr.  Tenniel,  who  idealised  no 
sovereign  but  their  own,  poked  week  by  week  at  the 


THE  EMPEROR  257 

queer,  foreign  figure  of  their  new  ally.  But  the 
Emperor  continued  to  dominate  his  capital;  and  as 
he  took  his  drives  abroad,  respectful  tourists,  fresh 
from  the  Dover  packet,  stood  up  to  raise  their  hats. 
One  afternoon  he  passed  an  open  cab  and  bowed 
vaguely  to  an  Admiral  Swinburne  and  his  lady;  the 
Admiral's  hat  came  smartly  off  as  the  Emperor  drove 
by,  but  there  was  a  white-faced  under-graduate  on  the 
box  whose  hat  remained  sternly  perched  on  a  great 
pyramid  of  red,  republican  hair. 

But  the  town  where  Napoleon  took  the  air  was 
changing  under  his  touch.  Fine  gentlemen  with  tilted 
hats  still  sat  outside  Tortoni,  and  the  carriages  went 
up  and  down  between  the  Place  de  la  Concorde  and 
the  Bois.  M.  de  Viel  Castel,  in  whose  irritable  little 
books  the  age  found  its  Mr.  Pepys,  might  sit  at  table 
between  Sainte-Beuve  and  de  Musset  or  dine  with  M. 
Houssaye  to  meet  M.  Theophile  Gautier,  whose  style 
was  so  preposterous,  and  M.  Diaz,  whose  pictures  were 
so  bad.  But  round  them  Paris  was  fading  into  some- 
thing new  and  bright  and  regular.  An  ungainly  man 
named  Haussmann  had  come  to  town  and  was  remak- 
ing it  in  his  own  image.  Great  avenues  were  hewn 
through  the  old  quarters,  and  nervous  citizens  walked 
every  Sunday  to  note  the  progress  of  the  week.  Some- 
times he  cleared  a  rookery  round  a  great  building; 
sometimes  he  linked  the  outer  barracks  with  the  centre 
of  the  town;  always  he  left  an  excellent  field  of  fire. 
Militant  democracy  had  loved  to  build  barricades  in 
old,  crooked  corners.  But  M.  Haussmann  favoured 
straight  vistas,  and  he  remodelled  Paris  with  a  queer 
blend  of  town-planning  and  measures  of  police.  The 
broad,  new  streets  which  drove  through  the  town  were 
beautifully  accessible  to  light,  air,  and  infantry.  No 
17 


258  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

insurrection  could  live  for  an  hour  in  those  long,  open 
avenues ;  and  on  the  barricades  of  the  future  it  would 
be  difficult  to  do  anything  but  die.  The  work  went 
quickly  on;  and  there  was  a  pleasant  stir  among  the 
building  contractors,  whilst  claims  for  compensation 
provided  a  new  and  fascinating  field  for  speculation. 

Yet  in  the  iridescence  of  its  new  decor  the  Empire 
did  not  forget  its  origins.  Piety  was  perpetually 
devising  fresh  embellishments  for  the  shrine  of  Bona- 
partism  at  the  Invalides.  A  reverent  Commission 
established  by  Imperial  decree  and  protecting  by  its 
discreet  omissions  Imperial  reputations,  was  searching 
Europe  for  the  twenty  thousand  letters  of  Napoleon 
I.  to  include  them  in  a  monument  twenty-eight 
volumes  high  to  the  First  Empire.  There  was  even  a 
strange  echo  of  old  wars  when  the  troops  marched  in 
behind  Canrobert  from  the  Crimea  and  the  Emperor 
took  the  salute  in  the  Place  Vendome.  In  the  shadow 
of  the  Column  twenty-five  old  men  stood  in  the  winter 
light :  it  was  forty  years  since  Waterloo,  and  they  were 
in  their  own  person  the  Grande  Armee,  two  of  them  in 
red  with  the  great  two-foot  plume  above  the  battered 
schapska  of  the  Red  Lancers,  and  on  the  right  of  the 
line  an  old  man  in  a  tall,  rusty  bearskin  with  black 
gaiters  buttoned  up  the  thigh  as  they  wore  them,  when 
the  bugles  sounded  for  Wagram,  in  the  Grenadiers 
of  the  Guard. 

On  this  bright  Parisian  scene,  with  its  vivid  new 
beginnings  and  its  faint  suggestions  of  an  earlier  past, 
there  entered  in  the  first  months  of  1856  an  assembly 
of  gentlemen  all  talking  in  different  languages  and 
intended  to  constitute  a  European  Congress.  They 
proposed  to  terminate  the  Crimean  War  and  to  settle 
beyond  dispute  the  Eastern  Question.  Since  the 


THE  EMPEROR  259 

Crimean  War  had  ended  itself  by  the  exhaustion  of 
the  Russians  and  the  tedium  of  the  French  (only 
Great  Britain  was  still  interested,  because  the  British 
public  in  their  queer  way  had  discovered  the  war  in 
its  third  year),  it  was  not  difficult  to  record  its  close 
in  a  treaty.  But  their  settlement  of  the  Eastern 
Question,  which  did  not  survive  its  next  time  of  ask- 
ing, was  of  less  value.  They  assembled  with  gravity 
under  the  presidency  of  M.  Walewski.  He  had  a 
charming  wife  and  was  reputed  to  be  Napoleon's  son 
by  a  Polish  countess ;  he  denied  the  distinction,  but  the 
rounded  profile  which  he  kept  clean-shaven  seemed 
to  confess  his  parentage.  Lord  Clarendon  came  from 
London,  and  the  Russians  sent  a  tall  old  man  in  green 
and  gold  who  wore  three  miniatures  of  his  Czar  set 
in  diamonds  among  his  decorations.  A  small  man  in 
a  fez  and  a  black  frock-coat  represented  the  gorgeous 
East,  and  someone  in  spectacles  named  Cavour  came 
from  Turin.  M.  Benedetti,  with  his  smooth  head  and 
his  big,  black  bow,  acted  as  Secretary;  and  the  Con- 
gress went  solemnly  about  its  labours,  whilst  Count 
Cavour,  with  the  vigorous  irrelevance  invariably  dis- 
played at  Peace  Conferences  by  the  delegates  of  new 
nationalities,  'deposited  the  Italian  Question  upon  the 
green  cloth  of  the  Congress  table.'  They  dined  with 
Lord  Cowley;  they  dined  at  Court;  they  conferred 
upon  the  closing  of  the  Black  Sea  and  the  navigation 
of  the  Danube;  they  drafted  and  re-drafted  with 
exquisite  skill;  and  they  inquired  discreetly  after  the 
health  of  the  Empress.  Then  one  Sunday  morning 
(it  was  March  16, 1856)  Paris  heard  twenty-one  guns 
from  the  Invalides,  and  a  pause,  and  eighty  more. 
There  was  a  prince  born  in  the  Tuileries,  and  the 
Emperor  was  half  running,  half  crying  through  the 


260  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

rooms  of  the  palace.  Eugenie  had  suffered  all  one  day 
and  night,  and  when  she  turned  to  him  to  ask  faintly : 
f  C'est  une  file?'  he  had  said  'Non'\  then  she  asked 
again :  'C'est  un  gar  f  on?'  and  he  said  again,  because  he 
feared  the  shock  for  her,  fNon} ;  and  she  asked,  'Mais 
alors,  qu'est-ce  que  c'est?'  The  Empire  had  an  heir ; 
the  crowds  were  cheering  outside  the  railings,  and  M. 
Gautier  was  scanning  his  lines  to  the  Prince  Imperial. 
Two  weeks  later  the  clever  gentlemen  at  the  Quai 
d'Orsay  gave  peace  to  Europe,  and  they  signed  the 
Treaty  of  Paris  with  the  quill  of  an  eagle  (was  not 
France  once  more  an  Empire?)  from  the  Jardin  des 
Plantes. 

The  reign  went  slowly  on  in  the  shining  days  of 
1856.  The  Emperor  danced  at  the  British  Embassy 
'dressed  quite  a  I'Anglaise:  blue  evening  coat,  with 
gilt  buttons,  and  velvet  collar;  a  white  waistcoat; 
black  breeches;  black  silk  stockings;  and  buckled 
shoes :  his  only  decoration  that  of  the  Garter ;  the  blue 
ribbon  crossing  his  waistcoat;  the  Star  on  the  left 
breast;  and  the  Garter  below  the  left  knee.'  All  the 
world  danced  or  dined  or  strolled  at  Compiegne  or 
saw,  with  Mr.  Henry  James  and  his  brother  William, 
'the  incomparable  passage,  as  we  judged  it,  of  the 
baby  Prince  Imperial  borne  forth  for  his  airing  or  his 
progress  to  Saint-Cloud  in  the  splendid  coach  that 
gave  a  glimpse  of  appointed  and  costumed  nursing 
breasts  and  laps,  and  besides  which  the  centgardes,  all 
light  blue  and  silver  and  intensely  erect  quick  jolt, 
rattled  with  pistols  raised  and  cocked.'  That  was  the 
Empire  in  the  good  days. 


VI 


IT  was  a  queer,  silent  France  that  drifted  contentedly 
into  the  year  1857.  Public  life  had  been  paralysed  by 
the  coup  d'etat,  and  the  nation's  affairs  were  trans- 
acted by  an  autocracy  in  which  the  absolutism  of  the 
Emperor  was  barely  tempered  by  the  authority  of  his 
ministers.  In  the  silence  of  the  country  there  was 
hardly  a  sound  beyond  the  steady  running  of  the 
Imperial  machine.  A  faint  reverberation  of  republi- 
can eloquence  floated  in  from  somewhere  across  the 
frontier,  and  there  was  an  audible  titter  of  genteel 
amusement  from  the  salons  whose  Orleanist  ex- 
ministers  displayed  their  superior  wisdom  to  sympa- 
thetic callers.  But  an  odd  silence  hung  over  the  public 
places  from  which  the  great  voices  of  1848  had  once 
governed  France;  and  whilst  M.  de  Morny  presided 
gracefully  over  a  parliament  of  nonentities,  the  dismal 
and  unreported  debates  of  an  undistinguished  Cham- 
ber were  little  more  than  a  hollow  echo  in  an  empty 
room. 

Yet  for  the  majority  of  Frenchmen  prosperity  was 
an  agreeable  substitute  for  politics,  and  in  the  first 
phase  of  the  Empire  France  passed  out  of  a  romantic 
period  of  insurrection  into  the  more  substantial  bless- 
ings of  the  Nineteenth  Century.  The  sporadic  rail- 
ways of  the  Forties  were  linked  up  into  a  national 
system;  commerce  was  startled  by  the  marvels  of  the 
electric  telegraph ;  the  seaward  horizons  were  smudged 

261 


262  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

by  the  unlovely  evolutions  of  steamboats;  there  was 
even  a  proliferation  of  banking  facilities  which  de- 
veloped large  enterprises  and  produced  a  type  of 
industrialist  that  was  already  familiar  in  Lancashire. 
It  was  an  age  of  material  activity  in  which  men  were 
disinclined  to  dwell  unduly  on  the  starvation  of  their 
political  aspirations,  a  comfortable  period  in  which  a 
young  man  named  Flaubert  was  charged  before  a 
criminal  court  with  aiding  and  abetting  the  editor  of 
a  weekly  magazine  to  subvert  religion  and  morality, 
and  sent  a  lean-faced  professional  gentleman  with 
bushy  whiskers  into  agonies  of  forensic  propriety  with 
the  adventures  of  Emma  Bovary. 

The  atmosphere  was  unfriendly  to  politics.  There 
was  a  public  funeral  or  so,  with  a  few  speeches  at  Pere 
Lachaise;  and  the  police  enjoyed  the  occasional 
diversion  of  detecting  a  plot  against  the  Emperor. 
But  although  the  Empire  was  without  serious  com- 
petitors, it  was  disinclined  to  take  risks;  and  at  the 
elections  of  1857  opinion  was  carefully  manipulated 
in  the  manner  which  had  become  traditional.  Pre- 
fects were  instructed  by  their  ministers  to  employ 
the  machinery  of  government  in  support  of  the 
official  candidates,  and  their  opponents  were  reduced 
to  the  predestined  futility  of  an  unauthorised  cam- 
paign. The  regimentation  of  opinion  was  almost 
uniformly  successful.  There  was  a  flicker  of  inde- 
pendence in  Paris,  which  had  never  quite  lost  a  taste 
for  politics.  But  the  provinces  voted  stolidly  for 
the  Emperor's  nominees,  and  republicanism  sat  in 
the  new  Chamber  only  five  members  strong  to  con- 
front the  serried  mass  of  Bonapartists.  The  little 
group  seemed  insignificant  enough  in  the  autumn  of 
1857;  there  was  a  dark  young  man  in  spectacles 


THE  EMPEROR  263 

named  Ollivier  and  a  strange  shaggy  creature  called 
Jules  Favre,  who  seemed  to  have  been  left  over  from 
1848  into  a  pleasanter,  less  rhetorical  period.  But 
their  advent  into  Imperial  politics  was  a  shade 
ominous.  Hitherto  the  republicans  had  confined 
themselves  to  a  statuesque  refusal  to  take  the  oath 
of  allegiance,  an  obliging,  if  dignified,  attitude  which 
had  completely  relieved  the  Empire  from  the  un- 
pleasantness of  an  Opposition.  But  les  Cinq,  after 
a  vast  deal  of  heart-searching,  correspondence,  con- 
sultation of  republican  oracles,  and  debate,  took  a 
more  enterprising  view  and  presented  themselves  in 
the  Chamber  as  an  active  party.  It  was  a  strange 
intrusion  of  reality  into  the  parliamentary  charade 
of  the  Empire,  and  nervous  Deputies  shuddered  as 
the  shadows  of  three  lawyers,  one  journalist,  and  a 
gentleman  from  Lyons  fell  across  the  bright  Imperial 
scene. 

The  year  faded  out  without  any  movement  in 
politics.  Mr.  Disraeli  came  to  Paris,  dined  out  eleven 
nights  running,  and  failed  to  impress  the  Emperor; 
an  exchange  of  hospitality  brought  to  Napoleon  and 
his  Empress  the  felicity  of  a  few  days  at  Osborne 
with  'a  little  dance  in  a  tent  on  Saturday  (which  was 
very  successful)  and  additional  carriages  and  ponies'; 
the  Prince  Consort  was  gravely  receptive  as  usual 
whilst  the  Emperor  talked  at  large  about  Europe  and 
the  partition  of  North  Africa;  but  when  Albert 
'expatiated  a  little  on  the  Holstein  question,'  the  topic 
'appeared  to  bore  the  Emperor  as  tres  complique' 
and  the  Queen  found  it  all  Very  quiet  and  gemiithlich3 '; 
there  was  an  informal  return  visit  to  the  naval  works 
at  Cherbourg,  which  startled  Prince  Albert  and  his 
patriotic  wife;  then  came  autumn  manoeuvres  at 


264  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Chalons  and  a  meeting  with  the  Czar  at  Stuttgart 
which  set  the  world  talking  but  left  Europe  precisely 
where  it  had  been  since  the  Peace  of  Vienna.  But  a 
bearded  man  from  the  Romagna  named  Orsini  was 
flitting  about  the  Continent  with  an  admirable  speci- 
fication for  the  manufacture  of  bombs  and  a  fixed 
obsession  that  the  liberation  of  Italy  was  only  to  be 
achieved  by  the  death  of  the  Emperor  and  the  inaugu- 
ration of  a  revolution  in  France.  His  reasoning  was 
confused,  but  it  followed  closely  the  teaching  of 
Mazzini  and  the  normal  course  of  political  conversa- 
tion in  back  rooms  in  Soho.  An  order  for  six  bombs 
was  executed  at  a  reasonable  price  in  Birmingham; 
they  passed  the  Belgian  customs  in  the  luggage  of  a 
Swiss  waiter  who  declared  them  as  gas-fittings; 
Orsini  received  them  in  Brussels  and  left  for  France 
with  a  British  passport  in  a  false  name;  the  bombs 
followed  him  to  Paris  in  charge  of  a  simple-minded 
ostler,  and  in  the  second  week  of  1858  the  parties  to 
the  attempt  converged  on  the  scene.  All  four  were 
Italians ;  and  their  conversations,  in  a  code  which  was 
rendered  faintly  convincing  by  Orsini's  alias  of  'All- 
sop,'  ran  principally  upon  the  manufacture  and  sale 
of  beer.  In  the  failing  light  of  a  winter  afternoon 
(it  was  January  14,  1858)  they  met  in  a  little  room, 
and  each  of  them  pocketed  something  wrapped  in 
black  silk.  Then  they  walked  out  into  Paris  and 
waited  in  the  cold  for  the  Emperor  to  drive  up  to  the 
Opera.  One,  by  a  queer  chance,  was  arrested;  but 
three  remained  in  the  crowd.  There  was  a  sound  of 
distant  cheering  and  the  clatter  of  oncoming  horses. 
The  cheers  came  nearer,  and  the  Lancers  of  the  Guard 
jingled  into  the  gaslight  by  the  Opera.  Then,  as  a 
closed  carriage  drove  up,  the  bombs  crashed  into  the 


By  permission  of  Messrs.  Braun  &  Co. 


Napoleon  III.  (1863) 

From  the  picture  by  Flandrin  in  the  Musee  de  Versailles 


THE  EMPEROR  265 

roadway.  The  lights  went  out,  and  the  street  was 
filled  with  cries  and  broken  glass  and  men  and  horses, 
as  the  Italians  faded  back  into  the  crowd.  There  was 
a  vague  gleam  of  drawn  swords,  and  the  Empress, 
muttering,  'Les  poignards  maintenant*  put  herself 
between  her  husband  and  the  street.  Inside  the  Opera 
they  were  playing  William  Tell,  and  a  few  moments 
later  the  whole  house  stood  up  to  cheer,  as  Napoleon 
and  Eugenie  walked  into  their  box:  her  dress,  after 
the  dreadful  street,  was  no  longer  white.  There  was  a 
confused  evening  of  arrests  and  congratulations. 
Orsini  was  taken  in  his  bed  that  night,  and  the  Em- 
peror drove  back  to  the  Tuileries  through  the  roaring 
streets;  while  the  police  were  raking  Paris  for  the 
murderers,  he  knelt  with  Eugenie  in  the  half  light  of 
a  nursery  beside  the  child  who  was  so  nearly,  never 
more  nearly,  Emperor  of  the  French. 

As  the  echoes  died  away,  the  attempt  on  the  Em- 
peror left  its  mark  on  French  policy.  The  new 
Chamber  was  lectured  on  the  need  for  firmness;  the 
Empire  turned  sharply  away  from  the  path  of  parlia- 
mentary Liberalism,  and  emergency  powers  were 
conferred  upon  the  executive  by  a  Loi  de  surete 
generate,  which  enabled  the  Imperial  authorities  to 
detain  or  deport  their  enemies  without  trial.  Since 
the  soldierly  illegality  of  this  procedure  was  felt  to 
be  unsuitable  for  exercise  by  a  civilian,  there  was  a 
change  at  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior  and  General 
Espinasse  was  appointed  to  administer  the  new 
powers.  Son  Excellence  le  general-ministre  was  a 
simple-minded  absolutist  who  had  served  his  ap- 
prenticeship in  the  coup  d'etat,  and  he  performed  his 
duties  by  the  unsubtle  expedient  of  exacting  a  stated 
quota  of  arrests  from  every  Department  in  France. 


266  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Society  was  to  be  saved  once  more ;  but  it  acquiesced 
less  readily  in  its  salvation  than  in  1851.  There  was 
a  faint  protest  from  les  Cinq,  and  in  the  Senate 
General  MacMahon  stood  up  alone  to  speak  against 
the  system.  But  it  passed  into  law;  and  when  four 
hundred  arrests  were  made  under  it,  the  Empire 
seemed  to  have  parted  company  for  ever  with  liberty. 
Stranger  still  was  the  effect  which  the  attempt 
had  on  foreign  policy.  There  was  a  natural  protest 
to  Piedmont  against  the  export  of  Italian  bomb- 
throwers.  But  the  real  resentment  was  against 
England,  where  one  of  the  conspirators,  who  had  re- 
mained in  the  peace  of  Bays  water,  was  acquitted  by  a 
Middlesex  jury;  and  it  was  expressed  in  a  demand  on 
London  that  Great  Britain  should  restrict  the  right 
of  asylum  which  had  enabled  Orsini  to  meet  his  men 
behind  Leicester  Square.  Lord  Palmerston  was  sym- 
pathetic and  proposed  to  deal  in  the  Conspiracy  to 
Murder  Bill  with  persons  conspiring  to  commit 
crimes  outside  the  British  jurisdiction.  But  he  had 
taught  his  countrymen  for  too  long  to  deride  the 
ridiculous  demands  of  foreign  potentates,  and  British 
opinion  was  rendered  more  British  still  by  the  tone 
of  falsetto  militancy  in  which  patriotic  French  officers 
had  protested  their  resentment  of  foreign  assassins 
and  their  haunts  in  London  among  the  victors  of 
Waterloo  and  the  associates  of  Sir  Hudson  Lowe. 
The  question  passed  from  the  sphere  of  intelligence 
to  that  of  patriotism.  Excited  men  made  speeches 
in  Hyde  Park;  Punch  depicted  its  late  allies  as  a 
crowing  cock  in  a  kepi\  and  this  discerning  mood  com- 
municated itself  to  the  House  of  Commons,  where 
Mr.  Kinglake  (who  had  once  admired  the  white 
shoulders  of  Miss  Howard)  struck  patriotic  attitudes 


THE  EMPEROR  267 

whilst  the  author  of  Ten  Thousand  a  Year  filled 
thirteen  and  a  half  columns  of  Hansard  with  a  full 
statement  of  the  law,  several  Latin  quotations,  and  a 
peroration  on  the  subject  of  King  Edward  III.  On 
the  second  reading  an  amendment  was  carried  against 
the  Government  by  a  queer  combination  of  Tory 
speeches  and  Liberal  votes.  Mr.  Gladstone  and  Mr. 
Disraeli  walked  into  the  same  lobby,  and  Lord 
Palmerston  was  defeated.  It  was  a  blow  to  the 
Anglo-French  alliance  which  had  ruled  Europe  since 
1855;  and  even  a  royal  visit  to  Cherbourg  in  the 
summer  did  little  to  restore  the  old  tone,  although 
Eugenie  wore  her  best  lilac  and  white  silk  dress 
and  white  and  black  lace  bonnet  and  'Albert,  who 
is  seldom  much  pleased  with  ladies  or  princesses, 
is  very  fond  of  her.'  The  Queen  spent  an  evening  in 
finishing  'that  most  interesting  book  Jane  Eyre'  dined 
on  board  a  French  battleship,  and  suffered  those 
peculiar  agonies  which  are  reserved  for  the  wives  of 
after-dinner  speakers — 'the  dreadful  moment  for  my 
dear  husband,  which  was  terrible  to  me,  and  which  I 
should  never  wish  to  go  through  again.  He  did  it 
very  well,  though  he  hesitated  once.  I  sat  shaking' 
(the  poor  lady  took  no  coffee,  and  even  the  Emperor 
was  quite  pale)  'with  my  eyes  clones  sur  la  table.3 
But  Englishmen  came  increasingly  to  regard  the 
Emperor  as  a  military  menace,  a  persistent  construc- 
tor of  ironclads,  the  master  of  great  armies  whose 
bayonets  troubled  old  ladies'  sleep  at  Dover  and  im- 
pelled young  gentlemen  to  defend  their  country  by 
quoting  Mr.  Tennyson's  patriotic  lyric  and  joining 
the  Rifle  Volunteers. 

But  the  strangest  echo  of  Orsini's  bombs  was  in 
Paris,  where  the  conspirators  were  tried  in  that  air  of 


268  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

eloquent  inconsequence  which  is  the  atmosphere  of 
French  jurisprudence.  The  defence  was  conducted 
by  Jules  Favre ;  and  since  his  client  was  indefensible, 
he  defended  the  far  better  cause  of  Italian  nation- 
alism. The  Court  listened  to  a  letter  from  the  prison- 
er in  which  he  begged  the  Emperor  to  liberate  Italy 
('Qu'  Elle  delivre  ma  patrie,  et  les  benedictions  de 
25  millions  de  citoyens  la  suivront  dans  la  posterite) , 
and  Maitre  Favre  followed  it  with  a  pleading  refer- 
ence to  the  nationalist  tradition  of  Bonapartism.  In 
the  grey  light  of  a  French  law-court  that  queer 
haunting  voice  rose  and  fell  and  died  away  in  the 
cry  which  Vittoria  sang  to  the  dark,  listening  tiers 
from  the  great  stage  of  La  Scala  at  Milan,  'Italia, 
Italia  shall  be  free!'  It  was  a  strange  appeal,  which 
the  Emperor  had  himself  made  possible  by  sending 
the  letter  to  the  lawyer.  It  was  made  in  the  hearing 
of  all  France ;  and  after  conviction  and  sentence,  when 
the  heads  had  fallen  and  the  crime  was  half  forgotten, 
the  Emperor  seemed  to  sit  wondering. 


VII 


ON  a  summer  morning  in  the  year  1858  the  Emperor 
sat  waiting  in  a  room  in  Plombieres;  outside  in  the 
little  town  his  subjects  took  the  waters,  and  to  the 
east  the  hills  climbed  up  steadily  through  the  trees 
into  the  high  Vosges  which  look  down  across  Alsace 
into  Germany.  He  was  expecting  a  caller  who  had 
come  in  overnight  from  Switzerland,  and  about  eleven 
in  the  morning  the  stumpy,  unimpressive  figure  of 
Cavour,  with  its  ill-fitting  spectacles  and  its  fierce, 
myopic  stare,  was  shown  in.  The  invitation  had 
come,  a  little  mysteriously,  from  the  Emperor,  and 
his  guest  interrupted  a  villeggiatura  of  elaborate  art- 
lessness  in  the  Alps  to  enjoy  the  Imperial  conversa- 
tion in  the  milder  surroundings  of  the  Vosges.  The 
two  men  talked  for  five  hours;  and  when  they  rose, 
the  future  of  Italy  had  taken  shape  under  their  hands. 
There  was  to  be  a  war,  of  course;  but  France  must 
have  a  reputable  casus  belli.  The  Austrians  might 
be  goaded  into  war  with  Piedmont,  and  then  it  would 
be  simple  for  France  to  come  in  with  a  fine  gesture  of 
protection.  When  the  war  was  over,  Italy  could  be 
remade.  Piedmont  might  take  the  northern  plain 
from  the  Alps  to  Venice;  there  would  be  a  kingdom 
of  Central  Italy  for  somebody;  one  must  leave  the 
Pope  at  Rome,  since  the  faithful  had  scruples,  but  he 
would  hardly  need  his  territory,  and  perhaps  (he  had 
not  had  a  change  of  title  for  centuries)  he  would  care 

269 


270  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

to  be  President  of  a  new  Italian  Confederation ;  then 
there  was  Naples — the  Russians  were  always  so 
peculiar  about  Naples,  and  one  might  safely  leave  it 
to  become  Italian  by  a  revolution  of  its  own.  The 
quiet  talk  went  on  behind  the  Emperor's  door  at 
Plombieres,  and  outside  in  the  sunshine  ladies  in 
crinolines  walked  up  and  down  beneath  the  balconies 
in  the  little  street.  There  was  still  France  to  be 
considered  (the  Emperor's  level  voice  was  speaking 
again) ;  France  must  have  something;  why  not  Savoy 
and  Nice?  His  guest,  who  had  been  in  the  corn  trade, 
contested  the  price;  Savoy  was  too  valuable,  and  then 
since  Nice  was  Italian,  it  could  hardly  turn  French 
if  the  new  doctrine  of  nationality  were  sound.  The 
Emperor  sat  twisting  his  long  moustache  and  never 
found  (no  one  has  ever  found)  an  answer.  Questions 
of  detail  must  wait;  it  was  enough  that  in  five  hours 
of  easy  talk  Cavour  and  his  host  had  changed  the 
face  of  southern  Europe. 

They  met  again,  as  the  July  afternoon  wore  on  and 
the  trees  began  to  cast  long  shadows.  The  Emperor's 
phaeton  was  at  the  door,  and  he  drove  his  guest 
through  the  little  town  and  out  along  a  white  road 
into  the  hills.  As  the  horses  pounded  along  in  the 
sunshine  and  Count  Cavour  hazarded  the  opinion  that 
the  vicinity  of  Plombieres  was  among  the  most  pic- 
turesque portions  of  France,  the  Emperor  turned  the 
conversation  from  politics  to  romance.  He  had  a 
fine  young  cousin  of  thirty-seven;  the  King  of  Pied- 
mont had  a  daughter  of  fifteen.  If  France  was  to 
unite  with  Italy,  a  union  between  the  Courts  might 
serve  a  useful  purpose.  He  pressed  his  cousin's  suit 
through  the  long  afternoon ;  the  young  man  had  been 
wild  perhaps,  and  the  bride  was  a  trifle  young;  but 


THE  EMPEROR  271 

she  might  repose  confidence  in  one  so  constant  (had 
he  not  left  town  to  see  Rachel  on  her  death-bed  at 
Nice?)  to  his  mistresses.  The  two  men  talked  of  the 
match  without  irony,  as  the  hills  grew  dark  along  the 
road;  and  lights  were  beginning  to  shine  in  Plom- 
bieres,  as  the  phaeton  clattered  home  through  the 
streets  with  the  strange  allies. 

The  little  man  in  spectacles  slipped  back  across  the 
frontier,  and  the  Emperor  was  left  alone  on  the 
European  stage.  He  had  pronounced,  as  he  had 
written  nearly  twenty  years  before,  fle  nom  si  beau 
d'ltalie,'  and  he  had  taken  almost  the  first  construc- 
tive step  in  Continental  statesmanship  which  had  been 
known  since  the  Peace  of  Vienna.  His  action  was  in 
line  with  the  doctrine  of  nationality  which  he  had 
stated  in  the  Considerations  sur  la  Suisse  and  the 
Idees  Napoleoniennes,  which  had  haunted  him  when 
he  took  his  men  against  Civita  Castellana  in  1831  and 
reminded  an  impatient  friend  of  Italy  in  1848  that 
his  name  was  Bonaparte.  The  doctrine  was  a 
foreign  policy  in  itself;  it  was  to  earn  him  the  titter- 
ing commendation  of  a  British  diplomat  upon  'his 
professional  pursuits  as  surgeon  accoucheur  to  the 
ideas  of  the  nineteenth  century';  but  Sir  Robert 
Morier,  who  regarded  Baron  Stockmar's  as  'the 
noblest  and  most  beautiful  political  life  which  this 
century  has  seen,'  was  rarely  appreciative  of  ideas 
which  were  not  Teutonic.  The  Emperor  had  found 
his  doctrine:  it  remained  to  apply  it  to  the  recon- 
struction of  Europe. 

The  name  of  Italy  had  been  spoken  in  a  whisper  by 
two  men  at  a  health-resort.  Before  it  could  sound 
across  the  world,  the  quiet  sentences  of  diplomatic 
thermale  must  be  translated  into  the  terms  of  war  and 


272  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

a  peace-treaty,  and  the  stage  must  be  set  for  the  final 
tableau.  As  yet  no  one  in  France  knew  his  part  for 
the  new  piece.  The  Emperor's  ministers  were  told 
nothing  of  the  drastic  nature  of  their  sovereign's  cure 
at  Plombieres,  and  M.  Walewski  continued  to  rotate 
gravely  in  the  solemn  movements  of  the  European 
minuet.  The  customary  exchange  of  courtesies  con- 
tinued through  the  year  1858,  and  the  Austrians 
mounted  guard  at  Milan.  But  the  Emperor  was 
taking  the  autumn  sunshine  by  the  sea  at  Biarritz, 
and  on  a  September  morning  he  walked  down  from 
the  Villa  Eugenie  along  the  sands  in  sight  of  the  great 
rocks  and  the  surf  and  the  long  line  of  mountains 
which  is  Spain.  He  walked  with  his  cousin,  Prince 
Napoleon,  for  whom  he  had  found  a  bride  in  a  royal 
nursery;  and  as  they  went,  he  trailed  his  stick  in  the 
sand  and  told  him  of  the  future  of  himself  and  Italy. 
The  Empress  knew  nothing;  but  that  night  the 
Prince  left  for  Russia.  In  a  week  he  was  at  Warsaw, 
and  the  Czar  was  asked  to  take  a  hand  against 
Austria.  He  need  not  go  to  war  unless  the  Prussians 
came  in  against  France.  All  that  was  required  was 
a  Russian  concentration  on  the  Austrian  frontier, 
which  would  draw  off  troops  from  Italy,  and  Russia 
would  be  well  paid  by  a  revision  of  the  Black  Sea 
clauses  of  the  Treaty  of  Paris.  If  the  Germans  gave 
trouble  and  there  was  a  general  war,  she  might  even 
(the  Emperor  was  a  practising  nationalist  in  Italy, 
but  one  could  hardly  be  sentimental  about  Poland) 
get  Galicia.  It  was  a  queer  transaction;  but  the 
isolation  of  Russia  during  the  Crimean  War  had  left 
her  with  no  love  of  Austria,  and  Prince  Gortschakoff 
stood  amiably  on  one  side  to  watch  the  blow  fall  on 
Vienna.  There  was  even  an  attempt  to  buy  the 


THE  EMPEROR  273 

neutrality  of  Prussia;  but  the  Hohenzollern  were 
nervous  of  the  Bonapartes — et  dona  ferentes,  and  on 
that  side  nothing  was  arranged.  Yet  before  the  year 
was  out,  Cavour  was  contracting  for  a  rising  in  Italy 
and  something  brisk  beyond  the  Hungarian  border, 
the  stray  talk  of  Plombieres  was  written  down  and 
signed  in  a  treaty,  and  a  girl  was  sobbing  in  a  room 
at  Turin.  On  the  day  of  the  treaty,  which  pointed 
straight  to  war,  Lord  Malmesbury  assured  his  Queen 
that  no  war  'is  at  present  contemplated  by  the  Em- 
peror Napoleon  (who  has  just  contradicted  the  report 
officially),  and  Count  Beust  is  of  the  same  opinion.' 
Their  illusions  were  respected  for  three  weeks. 
But  at  the  New  Year's  reception  of  1859  the 
Emperor,  wth  a  rare  mastery  of  that  meaningless 
diction  of  which  royalty  possesses  the  secret,  startled 
the  world  by  addressing  to  the  amiable  widower  who 
represented  Austria  in  Paris  an  expression  of  hollow 
solemnity:  cJe  regrette  que  nos  relations  avec  votre 
gouvernement  ne  soient  pas  aussi  bonnes  que  par  le 
passe;  mas  je  vous  prie  de  dire  a  I'Empereur  que 
mes  sentiments  personnels  pour  lui  ne  sont  pas 
changes/  The  sudden  turn  (it  had  happened  to  the 
British  ambassador  in  1803)  was  in  the  Napoleonic 
manner,  and  the  poor  gentleman  was  scared  into 
despatches  of  enormous  length.  Stocks  fell,  as  the 
electric  telegraph  took  the  grave  and  empty  words 
into  every  town  in  Europe,  and  beyond  the  Alps 
Count  Cavour  muttered,  'II  parait  que  I'Empereur 
veut  oiler  en  avant.3  There  was  a  nervous  scurry 
among  the  diplomats;  and  the  Prince  Consort  was 
left  with  grave  misgivings,  shaking  his  head  and  writ- 
ing to  a  minister  to  warn  him  that  the  Emperor  'has 
been  born  and  bred  a  conspirator,  and  at  his  present 

18 


274  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

age  will  never  get  out  of  this  turn  of  mind,  scheming 
himself  and  suspicious  of  others.'  The  air  was  thick 
with  dementis  and  explanations.  But  the  King  of 
Piedmont  opened  his  Parliament  with  an  impulsive 
announcement  that  he  could  not  hear  unmoved  the 
bitter  cry,  the  fgrido  di  dolore*  of  Italy;  the  French 
Prince  came  to  Turin  to  fetch  his  Italian  bride ;  and 
General  Niel  was  working  with  the  soldiers  on  the 
military  details  of  the  new  alliance.  While  the  mas- 
ters of  British  policy  were  wringing  their  hands  and 
running  up  and  down  Europe  in  a  frenzy  of  good 
intentions  and  Prince  Albert  in  interminable  mem- 
oranda was  urging  Prussia  to  'be  German,  be 
Volksihumlich'  the  French  were  buying  draught- 
horses  for  their  gun-teams  and  moving  field-guns  into 
Algeria,  which,  oddly  enough,  never  got  past  Mar- 
seilles; troop-ships  were  put  into  commission,  and 
French  opinion  was  enlightened  upon  the  issues  by 
a  pamphlet  of  which  the  Emperor  saw  the  proofs. 
At  Turin  the  buccaneering  monarch,  who  had  im- 
pressed Queen  Victoria  by  his  'ganz  besondere, 
abenteuerliche  Erscheinung*  as  being  'more  like  a 
Knight  or  King  of  the  Middle  Ages  than  anything 
one  knows  nowadays,'  was  talking  to  Garibaldi, 
strangely  spruce  and  soon  to  appear  in  the  sober 
dignity  of  a  Sardinian  general's  uniform.  As  the 
winter  faded  into  spring,  Austria  mobilised  five  army 
corps  and  Piedmont  stood  to  arms.  There  was  a 
last  whirl  of  diplomacy;  England  offered  mediation, 
Russia  proposed  a  Congress,  Piedmont  was  asked 
to  disarm  and  argued,  Cavour  came  posting  to  Paris 
to  hold  the  Emperor  to  his  treaty.  French  policy 
seemed  to  sway  in  the  grasp  of  a  minister  who  worked 
for  peace  and  Prince  Napoleon  whose  desire  was  war. 


THE  EMPEROR  275 

The  Emperor  played  for  time ;  time  had  been  always 
on  his  side,  and  he  checked  the  Italians,  pressed  for 
demobilisation  and  a  Congress.  At  Turin  Cavour 
was  burning  papers  in  a  locked  room;  it  was  all  to 
end  in  talk  and  treaties,  and  he  was  half  minded 
to  end  with  it.  But  the  Austrians  and  their  proud 
young  Emperor  were  bewildered  and  angry;  it 
seemed  intolerable  that  Piedmont  should  emerge 
from  its  impertinence  without  humiliation,  and  they 
pressed  their  advantage  as  they  were  to  press  it  more 
than  fifty  years  away  in  a  disastrous  future,  pressed 
it  with  a  conviction  that  Germany  was  behind  them, 
and  pressed  it  too  far.  Someone  in  Vienna  drafted 
a  curt  ultimatum,  and  in  the  last  days  of  April,  1859, 
two  officers  in  white  coats  awaited  on  Count  Cavour 
to  give  Piedmont  seventy-two  hours  to  demobilise: 
it  was  a  challenge,  and  he  had  his  war.  The  news 
came  upon  Paris  at  Easter ;  and  as  the  crowds  poured 
out  of  the  churches,  the  marching  bugles  went  sound- 
ing through  the  Sunday  streets,  as  the  troops  went 
off  to  the  station.  Southwards  in  the  Italian  sun- 
shine Austria  tramped  stiffly  through  the  streets  of 
Lombardy,  and  little  towns  saw  the  great  sight  which 
Vittorias  friends  had  seen  ten  years  before,  'when 
the  crash  of  an  Austrian  regimental  band  was  heard 
coming  up  the  Corso.  .  .  .  The  regiment,  in  review 
uniform,  followed  by  two  pieces  of  artillery,  passed 
by.  Then  came  a  squadron  of  Hussars  and  one  of 
Uhlans,  and  another  foot  regiment,  more  artillery, 
fresh  cavalry.  .  .  .  Further  distracting  Austrian 
band-music  was  going  by  ...  came  a  regiment  of 
Hungarian  grenadiers,  tall,  swart-faced,  and  par- 
ticularly light-limbed  men,  looking  brilliant  in  the 
clean  tight  military  array  of  Austria.  Then  a  squad- 


276  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

ron  of  blue  Hussars,  and  a  Croat  regiment;  after 
which,  in  the  midst  of  Czech  Dragoons  and  German 
Uhlans  and  blue  Magyar  light  horsemen,  with  Ger- 
man officers  and  aides  about  him,  the  victorious 
Austrian  Field-Marshal  rode.  .  .  .  Artillery,  and 
some  bravely  clad  horse  of  the  Eastern  frontier,  pos- 
sibly Serb,  wound  up  the  procession.  It  gleamed 
down  the  length  of  the  Corso  in  a  blinding  sunlight; 
brass  helmets  and  hussar  feathers,  white  and  violet 
surcoats,  green  plumes,  maroon  capes,  bright  steel 
scabbards,  bayonet  points — as  gallant  a  show  as 
some  portentously  magnified  summer  field,  flowing 
with  the  wind,  might  be;  and  over  all  the  banners  of 
Austria — the  black  double-headed  eagle  ramping  on 
a  yellow  ground.'  The  men  marched  away  in  the 
spring  sunshine,  and  in  nine  days  after  Easter  the 
two  Empires  were  at  war. 


VIII 

IT  has  been  for  two  centuries  the  misfortune  of 
Austrian  generalship  to  provide  with  victories  the 
armies  of  other  nations,  and  in  1859  its  traditions 
were  well  maintained.  Five  corps  fumbled  slowly 
along  the  Piedmontese  frontier,  as  King  Victor 
Emmanuel  drew  back  behind  his  fortresses  and 
waited  for  the  French.  Napoleon  and  his  Empress 
were  driving  through  cheering  streets  in  an  open 
carriage,  and  his  men  were  moving  slowly  down  into 
Italy.  The  cavalry  went  between  the  mountains  and 
the  sea  by  the  coast-road  beyond  Nice,  and  long  lines 
of  infantry  wound  slowly  through  the  passes  of  the 
Alps.  Transports  from  Toulon  came  steaming  into 
Genoa,  and  in  mid-May  the  army  of  Italy  was  march- 
ing along  dusty  Italian  roads,  ill-found,  short  of 
supplies,  but  with  a  cheerful  confidence  founded 
mainly  upon  the  French  comic  papers  that  it  was  to 
meet  a  grotesque  and  panic-stricken  enemy  who  wore 
preposterous  headgear  and  surrendered  at  the  sight 
of  a  single  Zouave.  The  Emperor,  with  a  supreme 
gesture  of  Bonapartism,  took  the  command;  had  not 
his  uncle  in  his  gaunt,  lank-haired  youth  made  a  cam- 
paign of  Italy  against  the  Austrians,  and  might  not 
one  do  the  same  with  a  kepi  and  a  cigarette  and  a 
long  moustache  and  a  Staff  of  names  out  of  the 
calendar  of  Napoleonic  saints — Ney  de  la  Moskowa, 
Reille,  Joachim  Murat,  Montebello,  Cadore,  Clary, 

277 


278  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Tascher  de  la  Pagerie?  Even  the  surgeon  was  called 
Larrey,  and  it  seemed  almost,  as  the  French  swung 
along  between  the  rice-fields,  as  though  the  ghost  of 
the  Grande  Armee  was  walking  Lombardy.  Yet 
there  were  other,  simpler  names  in  the  lists  of  1859 
that  drifted  up  out  of  a  dark  future  and  seemed  to 
hang  waiting  round  the  Emperor  —  Forey  for 
Mexico,  Bazaine  for  Metz,  Leboeuf  for  the  last  button 
of  an  army's  gaiters,  Uhrich  for  the  red  sky  over 
Strasburg,  Wimpffen  for  the  green  hills  round 
Sedan. 

But  in  the  sunshine  of  1859  the  Emperor  tilted  his 
kepi  and  rode  out  of  his  headquarters  at  Alessandria ; 
somewhere  across  the  river  lay  Marengo  and  the 
Holy  Places  of  Napoleonic  strategy.  He  had  tele- 
graphed, kept  telegraphing  to  Paris  for  transport 
and  supplies;  Randon  at  the  Ministry  of  War  was 
reading  returns  and  saying,  'Tout  manquait  sauf  le 
courage*  But  General  Bonaparte  had  once  fought 
a  campaign  in  Italy  without  boots,  and  one  could 
always  rely  on  the  Austrians.  They  moved  elabor- 
ately against  Turin,  felt  an  enemy  somewhere  to  the 
south  of  them,  and  fell  back  to  the  frontier.  There 
was  a  scuffle  with  the  bayonet  at  Montebello,  and 
the  Emperor  began  to  move  his  pieces  on  the  board. 
When  a  Napoleon  took  the  field,  it  would  be  as  well 
for  him  to  be  Napoleonic ;  and  the  Emperor,  who  had 
consulted  the  oracles  of  military  orthodoxy  in  Paris, 
brought  with  him  an  authentic  plan  by  an  old  master. 
Almost  past  eighty,  living  in  the  suburban  peace  of 
Passy  was  a  Swiss  soldier  of  the  First  Empire  named 
Jomini,  who  had  ridden  with  Ney's  staff  at  Ulm  and 
Jena  and  left  his  master  as  the  clouds  gathered  after 
Moscow.  The  old  man  had  made  a  plan  for  his 


THE  EMPEROR  279 

master's  nephew,  and  he  made  it  in  the  full  tradition 
of  Soult  and  Berthier.  The  plan  was  palpable  to 
connoisseurs  as  a  perfect  Empire  piece;  one  could 
almost  see  the  gleam  of  the  brass  gryphons  on  its 
dark  rectangular  joinery.  It  ignored  completely  the 
unauthorised  innovation  of  railways,  and  it  depended 
for  its  success  upon  the  obliging  courtesy  of  an  enemy 
who  would  keep  reasonably  still.  But  since  it  was 
for  use  against  the  Austrians,  it  was  entirely  success- 
ful; and  the  French  enjoyed  in  1859  the  pleasing 
experience  of  defeating  with  the  methods  of  1809  an 
adversary  whose  military  thought  was  that  of  1759. 
Jomini's  plan,  in  the  mode  of  the  First  Empire,  was 
victorious  over  generalship  which  had  advanced  no 
further  than  the  Seven  Years'  War;  but  if  the 
Austrians  had  been  Prussians  or  if  General  von 
Moltke  had  ridden  to  Pavia  with  the  Feldzeugmeister 
Giulay,  the  French  would  have  been  swept  against 
the  Alps. 

In  the  last  week  of  May  the  Emperor  lay  to  the 
south  of  his  enemy.  In  a  march  of  four  days  along 
their  front,  he  circled  round  them,  passed  danger- 
ously up  the  Austrian  line,  and  on  June  4  came  down 
upon  them  from  the  north  at  Magenta.  Contact  had 
been  established  almost  by  accident;  and  strategy 
seemed  to  have  been  replaced,  as  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
by  mere  collision.  Then,  in  a  long  summer  day  of 
fighting,  the  issue  was  left  without  control  or  general- 
ship to  the  bayonet.  The  Emperor  sat  his  horse  in 
the  sunshine,  as  the  Guard  and  the  Zouaves  and  the 
Turcos  went  in  with  the  bayonet  and  his  generals 
fought  with  swords  up  village  streets.  The  Austrians 
were  shaken  but  held  on.  That  night  Napoleon  sat 
by  candlelight  in  a  village  inn:  he  had  telegraphed  a 


280  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

victory  to  Paris,  and  when  the  world  of  modistes  was 
startled  by  the  new  chemical  dyes,  ladies  were  to 
name  the  colour  of  their  garibaldis  and  polonaises 
after  Magenta. 

In  the  morning  the  Austrians  tramped  heavily 
eastwards  across  Lombardy,  heading  for  the  for- 
tresses of  the  Venetian  border;  and  whilst  in  Paris 
Eugenie  and  the  Italian  princess  were  driving  to  bow 
right  and  left  down  the  Rue  de  Rivoli,  the  Allies, 
with  a  greater  aptitude  for  pageantry  than  pursuit, 
set  their  faces  towards  Milan.  The  white  coats  had 
marched  away,  and  on  a  summer  morning  the  bear- 
skins of  the  Guard  were  massed  in  the  Piazza  d'Armi 
as  the  tall  helmets  of  the  Cent-gardes  went  by  and 
the  balconies  rained  flowers  on  a  King  and  an 
Emperor  going  up  on  horseback  through  the  roaring 
streets  to  the  frozen  magnificence  of  the  Duomo.  The 
Emperor  rode  slowly,  and  as  lyric  ladies  ejaculated: 

'Shout  for  France  and  Savoy! 

Shout  for  the  council  and  charge ! 

Shout  for  the  head  of  Cavour; 

And  shout  for  the  heart  of  a  King ' 


one  seems  to  see  bounding  by  his  side,  with  a  clash  of 
the  cymbals  and  a  shake  of  her  dark  ringlets,  the 
impulsive  spirit  of  Elizabeth  Browning  ingeminating 
her  ardent,  her  unfortunate  refrain 

'Emperor 
Evermore.' 

The  army  spent  a  pleasant  evening  in  the  lighted 
streets;  young  ladies  waved  handkerchiefs  from 
windows,  Lieutenant  Galliffet  of  the  Spahis  dined 
with  his  friends,  and  there  was  a  lively  iteration  of 


THE  EMPEROR  281 

the  friendly  syllables  'Liberatori!  Liberatori!'  Far 
away  to  the  north  Garibaldi  in  his  dark  Piedmontese 
uniform  was  moving  warily  among  the  foothills  of  the 
Alps,  and  from  Osborne  Queen  Victoria  was  watch- 
ing the  Emperor  nervously  and  waiting  until  'should 
he  thus  have  rendered  himself  the  master  of  the  entire 
Continent,  the  time  may  come  for  us  either  to  obey 
or  fight  him  with  terrible  odds  against  us.'  There 
was  an  unpleasant  rise  in  the  tone  of  Germany;  but 
he  stated  the  unselfish  nature  of  his  mission  in  a  proc- 
lamation to  the  Italian  people  and  plunged  heavily 
after  the  Austrians  across  Lombardy.  The  advance 
took  him  under  the  guns  of  the  four  strong  places 
of  the  Venetian  Quadrilateral,  where  the  Austrians, 
reinforced  and  commanded  by  their  Emperor,  were 
waiting  dully.  Once  more  collision  took  the  place 
of  strategy,  and  the  two  armies  drifted  into  contact 
on  the  hills  south  of  Lake  Garda,  where  for  three  days 
of  August,  1796,  the  gaunt  infantry  of  the  Republic 
and  its  young  generals  had  faced  the  white  coats. 
They  fought  in  the  blazing  sun  of  June  24  at  Sol- 
f  erino ;  and  once  more  the  bayonets  thrust  and  lunged 
in  the  sunshine,  as  the  Emperor  sat  watching  on  his 
horse  and  smoked,  gave  an  order,  smoked  again,  and 
watched,  muttering  'Les  pauvres  gens!  les  pauvres 
gens!  quelle  horrible  chose  que  la  querrel'  It  cost 
him  more  than  fifty  cigarettes  to  sit  the  day  out ;  and 
when  the  shadows  began  to  fall  longer  from  the  west, 
a  storm  of  rain  and  wind  swept  down  between  the 
armies.  As  it  drove  away,  the  Austrians  were  filing 
slowly  eastwards  behind  the  Mincio,  and  the  Emperor 
telegraphed  to  Paris  'Grande  bataille,  grande  vic- 
toire'  for  a  weary  woman  to  read  in  bed  at  St.  Cloud. 
There  was  a  flutter  of  flags  in  the  Paris  streets,  and 


282  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

she  drove  with  a  boy  of  three  between  mounted 
officers,  through  a  hail  of  flowers  to  the  great 
cathedral. 

The  army  moved  slowly  forward  through  the 
Italian  summer,  and  the  Emperor  rode  on  with  his 
doubts.  Some  infection  was  filling  his  hospitals; 
there  was  fever  along  the  dusty  roads,  and  at  the  end 
of  them  Austria  stood  waiting  behind  the  great  guns 
of  the  Venetian  fortresses.  The  Empress  wrote  from 
Paris  that  the  Prussians  were  massing  troops  behind 
the  Rhine;  the  French  army  was  in  Italy  and  the 
road  was  open.  It  was  not  easy,  if  France  was  to 
be  protected  on  the  eastern  frontier,  to  thrust  after 
the  Austrians  into  Venetia.  If  one  succeeded,  the 
Germans  would  'regard  any  serious  defeat  of  Austria 
in  Italy,  or  anything  that  should  seriously  endanger 
her  position  in  the  Quadrilateral,  as  a  danger  to  the 
left  flank  of  the  German  position,'  and  they  might 
be  in  Paris  in  a  month.  If  one  failed,  Lombardy  was 
lost  and  France  would  not  be  merciful  to  a  defeated 
Bonaparte — cce  serait  finiS  as  the  French  ambassador 
had  told  the  Queen,  'avec  la  Dynastie/  The  risks 
were  too  great,  and  on  a  summer  evening  Fleury 
drove  through  the  Austrian  lines  into  Verona.  In 
the  morning  the  dust  of  his  carriage  came  back 
up  the  white  road:  there  was  an  armistice,  and 
Napoleon  was  telling  his  generals  in  a  garden  that 
France  could  not  both  besiege  Verona  and  defend 
herself.  Four  days  later,  on  July  11,  a  house  lay  in 
the  morning  sunshine  on  the  road  beyond  Villaf  ranca. 
Some  officers  stood  waiting  in  the  road,  and  inside  the 
house  two  men  sat  talking  in  a  hot  room.  One  of 
them  was  Emperor  of  the  French,  the  other  was  a 
tall  young  man  of  twenty-eight  in  a  blue  uniform: 


THE  EMPEROR  283 

he  reigned  in  Austria  as  Franz- Joseph  I.,  and  he  had 
a  young  wife  in  Vienna  and  a  boy  of  one  named 
Rudolph.  Since  he  had  hardly  known  defeat,  he 
carried  himself  well  with  his  fair,  bushy  whiskers. 
But  half  a  century  away  he  was  to  fade  dismally  out 
of  life  in  the  thunder  of  a  twilight  of  half  the  gods  in 
Europe,  the  bowed  Emperor  of  a  dwindling  Empire, 
husband  of  a  murdered  woman,  and  father  of  a  son 
mysteriously  dead.  Yet  it  was  very  far  away  in  the 
sunshine  at  Villafranca.  The  two  men  talked  easily 
in  the  little  room;  and  without  maps  or  papers,  as 
the  French  Emperor  frayed  some  flowers,  they  made 
peace  between  France  and  Austria.  Lombardy  was 
to  be  surrendered;  Venice  would  be  reformed;  and 
the  Pope  might  preside  over  an  Italian  Confedera- 
tion. After  an  hour  they  rode  away,  and  before  dusk 
Franz-Joseph  was  signing  the  treaty  in  a  room  at 
Verona.  Prince  Napoleon  stood  by;  and  as  he 
signed,  the  Emperor  said,  cJe  souhaite,  Prince,  que 
vous  ne  soyez  jamms  dans  la  necessite  de  ceder  votre 
plus  belle  province' :  the  wish  was  not  answered.  But 
the  Peace  of  Villafranca  became  the  law  of  Europe, 
and  the  Emperor,  who  had  promised  to  the  Italians 
their  country  from  the  Alps  to  the  Adriatic,  left  his 
work  half  done.  Cavour  was  raving  at  his  master; 
Queen  Victoria  was  busily  objecting  to  Foreign 
Office  drafts;  and  Italian  opinion  was  exclaiming 
with  Mrs.  Browning: 

'Peace,  peace,  peace,  do  you  say? 

What! — with  the  enemy's  guns  in  our  ears? 

With   the   country's    wrong   not   rendered   back? 
What! — while  Austria  stands  at  bay 

In  Mantua,  and  our  Venice  bears 

The  cursed  flag  of  the  yellow  and  black?' 


284  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Yet  a  good  deed  half  done  was  better  than  no  deed. 
There  was  always  time  to  resume;  il  ne  faut  rien 
brusquer,  and  the  Emperor  had  only  drawn  back 
within  a  week  of  war  with  Germany.  Before  the 
month  was  out  he  was  back  in  France,  riding  through 
the  flowers  and  the  cheers  on  a  triumphal  charger 
from  Anderson's  in  Piccadilly,  or  taking  the  salute 
as  the  army  of  Italy  marched  across  Paris  with  roll- 
ing drums  and  clanging  bands  and  great  wreaths  of 
laurel  on  the  colours,  whilst  battle-painters  in  tall 
studios  laid  on  their  reds  and  blues  (with  a  flicker  of 
white  for  the  retreating  Austrians)  or  posed  him  in 
attitudes  of  command  for  large,  commissioned  can- 
vases. A  Napoleon  had  led  out  the  armies  of  France 
and  ridden  home  again  from  victory:  his  effigy  was 
wreathed  on  the  coins  and  stamps  of  his  victorious 
country,  and  the  Empire  was  at  high  noon. 


IX 


EUROPE  in  1860  had  a  strange  master.  When  the 
scene  was  set,  the  Queen  of  England  with  her  stoutish 
husband,  the  Holy  Father  murmuring  'Caro  rmo 
Russell'  to  the  British  agent,  a  slim  young  man  at 
Schonbrunn,  the  mild,  elderly  moustache  of  Prussia, 
a  Czar,  a  comfortable  Queen  of  Spain,  and  the  comic 
ferocity  of  the  Re  gaLanfuomo  at  Turin  seemed  to 
fall  apart  and  sidle  into  the  wings,  as  Napoleon  III. 
took  the  centre  of  the  stage.  He  moved  slowly,  with 
his  cigarettes  and  his  great  moustache  (it  was  at  its 
longest  after  the  war  of  1859)  and  the  hair  bunched, 
after  an  earlier  fashion,  above  his  ears;  and  before 
he  spoke,  he  seemed  always  to  wait  for  a  hint  from 
the  prompter.  It  was  a  quiet  figure.  Yet  his  pre- 
eminence was  no  less  than  his  uncle's  and  as  great  as 
Frederick's  a  hundred  years  before,  when  the  world 
had  centred  on  that  tight-lipped  man  with  hunted 
eyes.  But  they  seemed,  those  earlier  effigies,  to  cast 
a  sharper  shadow  in  the  hard  light  of  an  older  time. 
His  was  a  vaguer  outline,  a  milder,  perhaps  a  more 
intelligent  figure  with  its  good  manners  and  its  taste 
for  modern  ideas.  'Our  friend,'  as  Lord  Clarendon 
wrote  with  a  touch  of  the  pitying  characterisation  of 
Mr.  Henry  James,  'is  an  odd  little  fellow.'  He  is 
visible  in  the  years  after  the  Italian  war  moving 
quietly  about  his  Court  among  the  trees  at  Fontaine- 

285 


286  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

bleau,  or  by  the  sea  at  Biarritz,  or  in  the  two  square 
palaces  at  St.  Cloud  and  the  Tuileries,  which  were 
caught  up  somehow  in  his  fate  and  came  crashing 
down  with  him  to  a  dull  roar  of  flames.  One  seems  to 
see  him,  in  those  central  years  of  the  Second  Empire, 
with  his  long  face  bearded  to  look  still  longer  and  a 
great  waxed  moustache,  smoking  among  his  papers 
at  the  Tuileries  (the  heat  in  the  little  room  was  always 
stifling,  and  it  was  filled  with  the  dull  gleam  of 
Empire  furniture)  or  running  upstairs  with  a  ciga- 
rette when  fU genie'  sounded  her  gong  at  the  top  of 
the  little  staircase;  strolling  on  the  terrace  by  the 
river  in  the  bourgeois  solemnity  of  a  vast  top-hat,  or 
driving  a  phaeton  in  the  Bois;  crossing  the  polished 
floor  of  the  great  gallery  at  Compiegne,  as  the  doors 
swung  back  and  the  party  saw  the  Emperor  come 
slowly  into  the  circle,  murmuring  the  meaningless 
courtesies  of  royal  conversation  in  his  black  coat  and 
knee-breeches  with  the  shirt-front  barred  with  the 
vivid  red  of  the  Legion.  One  gets  a  sight  of  him 
walking  a  little  heavily  on  the  sands  at  Biarritz,  or 
driving  up  hot  Basque  roads  to  the  blue  line  of  the 
Pyrenees  in  brakes  full  of  smiling  ladies;  sometimes 
Eugenie  wore  her  black  mantilla,,  and  they  sat  to- 
gether through  a  corrida  in  the  little  bull-ring  at 
Bayonne,  or  they  all  went  out  in  boats  into  the  Bay 
of  Biscay  or  on  the  milder  waters  of  the  lake  at 
Fontainebleau.  There  were  dances,  hunts,  drives, 
shoots,  reviews,  receptions.  He  had  acquired,  in  all 
their  fatal  versatility,  the  multiple  accomplishments 
of  royalty,  sometimes  a  soldier  in  camp  at  Chalons, 
sometimes  (in  tactful  company)  a  savant,  sometimes 
a  mere  gesture  of  monarchy  on  a  round-backed 
Empire  throne,  sometimes  a  sportsman  with  the  fine, 


THE  EMPEROR  287 

promiscuous  bag  of  foreign  shooting  or  following  the 
staghounds  at  Compiegne  in  a  queer,  Eighteenth 
Century  masquerade  of  three-cornered  hats.  But 
mostly  he  was  a  kindly,  aging  man  who  inflicted 
parlour  games  upon  his  circle  or  sat  smiling  a  vague, 
sleepy  smile  through  the  innumerable  scenes  of 
Imperial  magnificence.  It  was  a  strange  figure. 

Beside  him  sat  the  sad,  perpetual  smile  of  Eugenie, 
as  she  bowed  her  way  through  the  life  of  an  Empress, 
and  the  little  head  which  Lulu  bent  above  his  toys. 
Behind  them  there  was  the  rustling,  gleaming,  shift- 
ing scene  of  the  Imperial  Court  with  the  faces  thrust- 
ing forward  a  little  eagerly  into  the  light.  For  the 
most  part  it  was  the  circle  of  1850  which  had  gathered 
round  the  President  at  the  Elysee.  But  under  the 
Empire  the  circle  seemed  drawn  into  a  bolder  sweep. 
One  saw  the  old  faces — M.  de  Persigny  with  his 
solemn  stare,  the  wry  smile  of  M.  Merimee,  Moc- 
quard  the  secretary  in  his  buttoned  coat,  General 
Fleury,  and  the  suave  M.  de  Morny  with  his  bald 
head  and  his  imperial.  But  they  appeared  in  the 
ampler  dignity  of  more  impressive  characters;  they 
were  all  ministers,  ambassadors,  Senators  of  the 
Empire;  there  was  a  profusion  of  decorations  and 
gold  braid,  and  the  intimates  of  the  Elysee  rotated 
gravely  as  an  Imperial  aristocracy.  Morny,  who 
had  been  born  without  a  name  and  was  to  die  a 
Duke,  was  the  most  elegant  (was  he  not  the  pious 
founder  of  Deauville  and  the  Grand  Prix?)  and 
passed  gracefully  along  'dans  son  attitude/  as  young 
M.  Daudet  saw  him  from  a  desk  in  his  office,  fde 
Richelieu-Brummel/  with  the  plaque  of  the  Legion  of 
Honour  on  his  coat  and  a  faint  flavour  of  finance  and 
the  Ballet,  President  of  the  Chamber  and  ex-ambas- 


288  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

sador  at  the  Court  of  St.  Petersburg.  Fleury  had 
risen  from  a  captain  of  Spahis  to  be  colonel  of  the 
Guides  and  a  grave  person  who  conversed  with 
foreign  Emperors;  Mocquard,  who  had  once  written 
the  Prince's  letters  in  a  hotel  room  in  the  Place  Ven- 
dome,  drafted  Speeches  from  the  Throne;  and  Per- 
signy  was  seen  in  Downing  Street  on  his  way  to  a 
conference  with  Lord  Palmerston. 

Beyond  the  intimates  there  came  the  circle  of  the 
ministers,  solemn  gentlemen  in  black  suits  who  tilted 
the  great  stove-pipe  hats  of  1860  and  looked  wise  as 
they  came  out  of  Council  to  their  carriages  at  St. 
Cloud  or  seemed  a  trifle  out  of  place  on  the  broad 
steps  at  Compiegne.  M.  Fould,  who  was  so  clever 
about  money  matters,  was  of  the  group,  and  M. 
Billault  who  made  such  splendid  speeches,  and  M. 
Rouher  spreading  his  broad  shoulders  and  looking 
burly,  and  M.  Walewski  confronting  Europe  with 
the  courage  of  his  master's  convictions. 

But  the  stir,  the  rustling  movement  of  the  Court, 
came  from  the  ladies,  from  the  tittering  groups  that 
stood  in  corners,  wives  and  daughters  of  the  grave 
gentlemen  in  knee-breeches.  The  Empress  had  her 
ladies  with  the  diamond  monogram  on  the  shoulder- 
knot — two  Murats,  an  Essling,  a  Bassano,  a  Monte- 
bello,  a  Latour-Maubourg  (the  list  sounded  like 
army  orders  of  the  First  Empire),  an  Aguado  for 
Spain  and  a  Bouvet  for  her  heavy  beauty.  Most  of 
the  intimates  were  married ;  Morny  had  brought  back 
a  Troubetzkoi  from  St.  Petersburg  who  had  small 
features  and  lived  on  talk  and  cigarettes,  Madame  de 
Persigny  was  a  Ney  who  carried  so  much  of  London 
with  her  from  her  embassy  that  they  called  her  in 
Paris  'Lady  Persington/  and  the  Countess  Walewska 


THE  EMPEROR  289 

was  a  dark  Italian.  There  was  an  exotic  world  of 
Russians  and  bright-eyed,  excited  ladies  from  Italy; 
one  repeated  M.  de  Massa's  elegant  facetiae  in  three 
languages,  and  the  ministers'  ladies  seemed  to  stand 
apart  a  little  nervously  in  their  great  stiff  skirts.  It 
was  a  shifting  sea  of  smiling  faces  with  hair  tortured 
into  the  strange  shapes  of  old  fashions,  swaying 
gently  to  the  new  Viennese  valses,  posing  a  little 
stiffly  in  the  tableaux  vivants,  or  taking  the  floor  in 
the  fantastic  dress  which  theatrical  costumiers  send 
out  for  fancy  balls  or  M.  Worth  (it  was  the  dawn  of 
the  grands  couturiers]  believed  to  represent  the  last 
authentic  voice  of  fashion.  A  little  world  of  pretty 
women  believed  (as  they  have  believed  so  often  since) 
that  it  had  discovered  the  true  life  of  friendship  with 
their  husbands  and  their  husbands'  friends;  and  the 
cocodes  and  their  cocodettes  (the  Second  Empire  had 
not  learnt  to  talk  of  Souls)  swung  slowly  round  to  an 
air  of  Strauss.  Solferino  was  avenged,  and  Pauline 
Metternich — cce  remnant  petit  monstre' — with  the 
insolence  of  her  ugliness  and  her  great  dark  eyes  and 
her  preposterously  whiskered  diplomat  of  a  husband 
set  a  tune  for  the  Tuileries  to  dance  to. 

Somewhere  beyond,  in  the  lighted  city,  a  whole 
town  took  its  tone  from  its  easy  master  and  his  smil- 
ing servants;  and  stranger,  brighter  figures  drifted 
into  the  flaring  gaslight  of  the  Second  Empire.  He 
had  been  for  so  long,  he  was  still  one  of  Nature's 
bachelors,  and  a  closed  carriage  sometimes  clattered 
through  the  dark  streets  to  a  silent  house.  The  world 
whispered,  and  women  were  left  with  strange  memo- 
ries, to  fade  miserably  out  of  life  with  a  codicil  so 
piteously  asking  for  burial  in  old  fragrance  and  old 
frailty,  for  'la  chemise  de  nuit  de  Compiegne,  batiste 
19 


290  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

et  dentelle,  1857,'  when  the  lights  were  turned  low, 
and  Madame  de  Castiglione  was  a  tarnished  recol- 
lection, and  the  Empire  was  thirty  years  in  its 
grave. 


X 

THE  tinkling  melody  of  the  Second  Empire  was 
played  out  to  a  deeper  accompaniment  from  beyond 
the  frontier.  Hostile  opinion  in  France  was  still  an 
affair  of  nods  and  whispers ;  the  drawing-room  futili- 
ties of  elegant  irony  went  on  behind  the  closed  doors 
of  Orleanist  salons,  and  a  malicious  ingenuity  of 
historical  parallel  enabled  intrepid  persons  to  elicit 
sly  laughter  with  the  curious  felicity  of  their  denunci- 
ations of  Tiberius  and  Caligula.  But  in  the  freer 
atmosphere  of  Brussels  and  Soho  they  took  a  higher 
tone,  and  a  long  litany  of  disgust  went  up  from  the 
'presents  barbus,  crochus,  moussus,  poilus,  bossus,  et 
obtusf  who  haunted  the  Channel  Islands.  For 
eighteen  years,  until  they  crept  one  by  one  into 
amnesty  or  the  grave,  they  roared  republican 
choruses;  and  through  the  steady  beat  of  their  song 
one  could  hear,  like  the  throb  of  lighter  music  through 
the  song  of  Tannhauser's  Pilgrims,  the  mounting 
notes  of  the  Empire. 

The  centre  of  the  little  stage  was  held  by  a  familiar 
figure  which  had  flitted  about  Paris  in  the  grey 
light  of  the  coup  d'etat,  hurried  across  Belgium,  and 
stepped  off  the  steamer  at  St.  Helier  with  the  dignity 
of  an  operatic  baritone  confronting  a  stage  thunder- 
storm. He  brought  with  him  to  British  territory  a 
burning  indignation,  a  pale,  impending  forehead,  an 
astonishing  vocabulary,  and  a  middle-aged  seraglio 

291 


292  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

of  two;  and  he  installed  all  of  them  with  an  un- 
seasonable air  of  holiday  in  the  mild  discomfort  of 
seaside  lodgings.  It  was  the  astounding  achievement 
of  Victor  Hugo  to  contemplate  the  eternal  verities 
and  to  commune  with  the  infinite  from  an  address 
in  Marine  Terrace;  and  on  this  exiguous  pedestal 
he  posed  that  figure  which  was  his  masterpiece,  his 
unsurpassable,  his  own,  muffled  in  the  dark  draperies 
of  exile  and  lit  by  the  wild  light  of  stormy  seas. 

His  first  winter  was  haunted  by  the  memories  of 
the  coup  d'etat,  the  streets,  the  running  feet,  the 
gunshots  in  the  Rue  Tiquetonne;  and  behind  it  all 
he  saw,  like  a  row  of  grinning  masks,  the  new  masters 
of  France.  All  history  seemed  to  begin  and  end  on 
the  winter  night  when  Paris  lay  silent  under  the  mist : 

'Trois  amis  I'entouraient.      C'etait  a  I'Elysee. 
On  "voyait  du  dehors  luire  cette  croisee. 
Regardant  venir  L'heure  et  I'aiguille  marcher, 
II  etait  la,  pensif  .  .  . 

Comme  Us  sortaient  tons  trots  de  la  maison  Bancal. 
Morny,  Maupas  Le  grec,  Saint- Arnaud  le  chacal, 
Voyant  passer  ce  groupe  oblique  et  taciturne, 
Les  cloches  de  Paris,  sonnant  Vheure  nocturne, 
S'efforgaient  vainement  d'imiter  le  tocsin.' 

The  events  of  the  three  days  of  December  were 
embalmed  in  an  elaborate  and  eloquent  mythology, 
and  a  bitter  litany  went  up  from  the  republican 
dead: 

'0  marts,  I'herbe  sans  bruit  croit  sur  vos  catacombes, 
Dormez  dans  vos  cercueils!     Taisez-vous  dans  vos  tombes! 
L'Empire,  c'est  la  paix.' 

The  Emperor — ' pirate  empereur  Napoleon  dernier' 
— appears  through  the  flames  of  a  new  Inferno  in 
every  attitude  of  infamy, 


'/////////////////  Hill 


g,  -a 

«U  a 

I  s 

1  5 

O  o. 

-u  a 

2  £ 

VH  ® 

2  £ 


\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  \ 


THE  EMPEROR  293 

'casse  de  debauches,  I'ceil  terne, 
Furtif,  les  traits  pdlis, 
Et  ce  voleur  de  nuit  alluma  sa  lanterne 

Au  soleil  d'Ausierl'iizl' 

Sometimes  he  is  almost  a  figure  of  comedy — 'ce 
Cockney  d'E glint  on  et  d'Epsom'  or  'Tom-Pouce 
Attila  or 

'une  espece 
De  perroquet  ayant  un  grand  nom  pour  perchoir.' 

But  more  often  he  wears  a  sinister  air — ece  vil  masque 
a  moustaches'  'I'homme  louche  de  I'filysee' — as  his 
frantic  showman  waves  an  ironical  pointing-pole 
towards  the  cage  of 

'I'homme  aux  yeux   etroits 
Que    I'histoire    appelle — ce    drole — 
Et  Troplong-Napoleon  trots — ' 

or  vociferates  in  a  crescendo  of  invective: 

'ce   gredln    taciturne 

Ce  chacal  a  sang-froid,  ce  Corse  hollandais, 
Etale,  front  d'airnin,  son  crime  sous  le  dais, 
Gorge  d'or  et  de  vin  sa  bande  scelerate, 
S'accoude  sur  la  nappe,  et  cuvant,  noir  pirate, 
Son  guet-apens  frangais,  son  guet-apens  romain, 
Mdche  son  cure-dents  tache  de  sang  humain!' 

The  onslaught  is  sustained,  with  the  assistance  of 
Juvenal  and  the  Apocalypse  in  equal  parts,  against 
the  friends  of  the  Ely  see — 'Canrobert  Macaire'  and 
the  dying  Saint- Arnaud — and  the  immoral  spectacle 
(so  distasteful  to  a  practising  bigamist)  of  the  nas- 
cent gaiety  of  the  Second  Empire.  The  poet  strains 
his  eyes  from  Jersey  through  the  mist  and  sees  the 
whirling  dance  of  an  Imperial  Brocken : 


294  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

'Pal  a  I'hotel  de  mile,  au  Luxembourg  gala. 
Allans,  juges,  dansez  la  danse  de  I'epee! 

Valsez,  Billault,  Paricu,  Drouyn,  Leboeuf,  Delangle! 

Danse,  Dupin!     Dansez  I'horrible  et  le  bouffon! 

Hyenes,  loups,  chacals,  non  prevus  par  Buff  on, 

Leroy,  Forey,  tueurs  au  fer  ronge  de  rouilles, 

Dansez!     Dansez,  Berger,  d'Hautpoul,  Murat,  citrouilles!' 

The  invective  rises  to  a  shriek  beside  which  the 
Second  Philippic  must  appear  a  piece  of  tasteless 
flattery,  and  the  poet  strains  his  voice  to  breaking- 
point  in  his  search  for  more  discordant  notes.  In 
Napoleon-le-Petit,  which  went  to  the  printer  before 
he  left  Belgium,  he  had  harnessed  history  to  the  base 
purposes  of  the  pamphlet.  Variations  on  the  same 
theme  travelled  with  him  to  England  in  his  luggage, 
to  appear  twenty-six  years  later  as  Histoire  d'un 
Crime.  But  his  Muse  was  still  distracted  by  the 
obsession  of  the  grey  December  days  of  1851,  and 
in  Les  Chatiments  he  made  her  drunk  with  words  and 
sent  her  to  reel  across  Europe  and  crouch,  mouthing 
her  detestation,  on  the  doorstep  of  the  Empire. 

The  dreary  business  of  denunciation  went  on  for 
eighteen  years.  The  scene  shifted  from  the  sea-front 
at  St.  Helier  to  a  corner  house  in  Guernsey;  bulky 
parcels  came  and  went  with  the  proofs  of  Les 
Miserables;  the  poet  was  caught  by  the  watchful 
camera  in  attitudes  of  profound  reflection  in  which 
the  gloom  of  Lord  Byron  was  artfully  combined  with 
the  expatriation  of  Ovid;  he  thought;  he  thought 
more  deeply  still ;  he  grew  a  beard.  But  whenever  an 
anniversary  came  round  in  the  republican  calendar, 
or  a  distant  insurrection  was  detected  in  need  of  the 
encouragement  of  a  manifesto,  or  an  exile  died  with- 


THE  EMPEROR  295 

out  the  consolations  of  a  funeral  oration,  there  was 
an  inexhaustible  well  of  reverberating  prose  at 
Hauteville  House,  in  which  little  groups  of  hearers 
could  see  reflected  the  broad  and  beating  wings  of 
human  effort  as  it  strove  upward  towards  the  fixed 
stars  of  an  eternal  Republic.  The  great  voice  came 
across  the  sea  into  England,  where  its  angry  iteration 
exasperated  the  old  and  its  deep  melody  obsessed  the 
young.  The  English  have  always  imported  their 
intellectual  fashions  from  the  Continent;  and  young 
gentlemen,  who  had  turned  Greek  with  Lord  Byron 
and  Italian  with  Mr.  Browning,  found  it  picturesque 
to  make  themselves  French  with  M.  Victor  Hugo. 
The  attitude  had  an  attractive  air  of  defiance,  and 
the  temptation  to  strike  it  was  deepened  by  the 
frisson  of  feeling  oneself  one  with  Danton  and  Marat 
and  the  more  freely  gesticulating  figures  of  M.  Victor 
Hugo  and  M.  Ledru-Rollin.  The  cold  intelligence 
of  Mr.  Bagehot  had  scandalised  the  readers  of  The 
Inquirer  by  his  approval  of  the  coup  d'etat.  But  it 
was  not  surprising  that  on  a  May  evening  in  1857  the 
Oxford  Union  met  in  the  Society's  room  (the  fine 
new  figures  which  Mr.  Morris  and  Mr.  Rossetti 
painted  for  their  young  friends  were  soon  to  gleam 
vaguely  from  the  high  ceiling)  to  warn  the  listening 
nations  'that  the  Despotism  of  Louis  Napoleon,  as 
at  present  exercised  over  France,  is  both  prejudicial 
to  the  progress  of  that  country  and  to  the  true  in- 
terests of  Europe.'  Young  Mr.  Bowen  of  Balliol 
sat  on  the  President's  left,  and  Mr.  Dicey,  uncon- 
scious of  his  own  longer  but  less  vivacious  walk  down 
the  dreary  avenue  of  jurisprudence,  denounced  the 
tyrant.  Someone  from  Brasenose  moved,  with  that 
feeling  for  very  old  institutions  which  is  normally 


296  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

experienced  by  very  young  men,  a  Legitimist  amend- 
ment ;  and  when  the  debate  was  resumed  a  week  later, 
the  House  enjoyed  the  engaging  spectacle  of  Mr. 
Swinburne  of  Balliol,  whose  room  was  decorated  with 
a  portrait  of  Mazzini,  urging  upon  it  with  all  the 
inconsequence  of  true  conviction  (and  in  breach  of 
the  Society's  admirable  rule  that  members  may  not 
read  their  speeches)  'that  although  some  benefits  have 
accrued  from  the  rule  of  Louis  Napoleon,  the  restora- 
tion of  the  Bourbons  to  the  Throne  of  France  is  much 
to  be  desired.'  The  amendment  received  no  support 
outside  the  four  members  who  spoke  in  its  favour; 
and  it  may  be  supposed  that  the  Bourbons,  who 
learnt  nothing,  were  never  aware  that  they  had 
engaged  the  momentary  support  of  Mr.  Swinburne. 
The  young  gentleman,  who  ensured  a  successful 
career  of  letters  by  competing  unsuccessfully  for  the 
Newdigate  Prize,  added  an  engraving  of  Orsini  to  his 
republican  gallery;  but  his  attentions  were  readily 
diverted  to  the  more  attractive  figures  of  Astarte  and 
Aholibah.  Yet  even  in  the  intervals  of  his  devotions 
to  Dolores  he  found  time  for  a  muttered  prayer 
to  see 

'Buonaparte  the  bastard 
Kick  heels  with  his  throat  in  a  rope.' 

A  respectful  review  of  Les  Miserables  was  followed 
by  a  gracious  letter  from  Haute ville  House ;  and  the 
poet's  craft,  which  was  always  a  trifle  rudderless, 
was  swept  into  the  great  stream  of  European  insur- 
rection which  set  from  Guernsey  against  the  coast  of 
France.  Mazzini,  Victor  Hugo,  Barbes,  Garibaldi, 
and  a  stray  rebellion  in  Crete  were  all  startled  with 
the  tribute  of  mellifluous  lyrics,  and  the  singer  sent 


THE  EMPEROR  297 

up  his  denunciations  of  the  Empire  and  'the  worm 
Napoleon'  in  a  steadily  mounting  crescendo  of  in- 
vective which  seemed  sometimes  to  rise  into  a  cracked 
falsetto.  In  imagery  which  stated  the  republican 
sentiments  of  Mr.  Odger  with  a  Dantesque  imagina- 
tion and  a  Biblical  vocabulary  his  readers  were 
invited  to  wait  hungrily  for  the  Emperor's  end: 

'O  Death,  a  little  more,  and  then  the  worm; 
A  little  longer,  O  Death,  a  little  yet, 
Before  the  grave  gape  and  the  grave-worm  fret; 
Before  the  sanguine-spotted  hand  infirm 
Be  rottenness,  and  that  foul  brain,  the  germ 
Of  all  ill  things  and  thoughts,  be  stopped  and  set.' 

The  exercise  was  pleasantly  titillating  to  a  young 
man  with  friends  whose  appetite  for  recitation  was 
fortunately  insatiable;  and  he  contributed  (like  his 
friend  Meredith)  'to  the  Song  of  French  History'  a 
metrical  Philippic  in  which  the  Emperor  appeared  as 
'an  evil  snake-shaped  beast'  and  'Judas'  and  'son  of 
man,  but  of  what  man  who  knows?'  until  a  winter 
day  in  1873  when  the  little  poet  pranced  about  with 
his  'funeral  flowers'  for  the  grave  at  Chislehurst  and 
screamed  over  the  man 

'Whose  soul  to-night  stands  bodiless  and  bare, 
For  whom  our  hearts  give  thanks  who  put  up  prayer, 
That  we  have  lived  to  say,  The  dog  is  dead/ 

Equally  apocalyptic  in  his  inspiration  but  of  more 
uneven  literary  accompaniment  was  the  Prophet 
Baxter,  who  saw  in  the  Emperor's  career  the  fulfil- 
ment of  all  prophecies  and  a  plain  indication  (so 
gratifying  to  true  believers)  of  the  approaching  end 
of  the  age  between  the  years  1864  and  1873.  A 


298  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

vigorous  pictorial  treatment  of  the  Beasts  of  the 
Apocalypse  demonstrated  that,  as  the  eighth  head, 
Napoleon  might  be  expected  to  manifest  himself 
as  Antichrist;  Apollyon  faded  imperceptibly  into 
Apoleon;  and  the  prophet  argued  with  a  wealth  of 
quotation  and  slightly  feverish  exegesis  that  the 
Empire  led  inevitably  to  Armageddon,  'an  un- 
precedented Revival  of  Religion  and  of  Missionary 
effort  among  the  Foolish  Virgins,'  a  successful 
invasion  of  Great  Britain,  the  Resurrection,  and 
quite  a  number  of  other  agreeable  fixtures  which 
might  be  expected  to  take  place  at  regular  intervals 
after  the  date  of  Mr.  Baxter's  researches.  The 
Emperor,  described  forcibly  as  'this  great  Ante- 
typical,  Papistico-Infidel,  Democratico-Despotic, 
Personal  Antichrist,'  was  to  fall  with  the  Pope  into 
a  new  volcano  conveniently  opened  for  the  occasion 
outside  Rome  after  a  crowded  career  including  cam- 
paigns in  Egypt  and  Palestine  and  the  subjugation 
of  America,  to  which  references  in  the  Apocalypse 
are  unaccountably  vague  but  may  be  inferred  from 
an  indication  somewhere  in  the  text  of  'a  wilder- 
ness.' Mr.  Baxter's  programme  was  packed  with 
pleasing  incident,  and  it  was  timed  to  end  at  latest 
in  1873.  In  that  year  dutifully  ended  NapoleonllL; 
but  the  universe,  which  had  been  kept  in  ignorance  of 
Mr.  Baxter's  revelation,  omitted  to  end  with  him. 


XI 


THE  Second  Empire  in  1860  drifted  into  its  last 
decade  at  a  characteristic  tilt.  Whilst  the  Emperor, 
upon  a  somewhat  Anglo-Saxon  view  that  the  com- 
position of  history  forms  an  appropriate  relaxation 
for  men  of  action,  was  beginning  to  collect  material 
for  a  life  of  Caesar  and  calling  upon  slightly  em- 
barrassed savants  to  produce  ' documents  dnedites'  of 
the  period,  Europe  was  fingering  a  little  doubtfully 
the  Italian  question. 

This  problem,  which  provided  well-informed  per- 
sons with  the  agreeable  form  of  intellectual  dis- 
traction subsequently  derived  from  the  Balkan 
Peninsula,  was  set  for  solution  beyond  all  hope  of 
avoidance.  Grave  gentlemen  considered  the  future 
of  Central  Italy  and  its  minor  monarchies  and 
wrestled  with  the  paradox  of  the  French  garrison 
in  Rome,  whilst  the  prospects  of  the  Papacy,  the 
continuance  of  Bourbon  incompetence  in  the  King- 
dom of  Naples,  the  obvious  aggressions  of  Piedmont, 
and  a  vague  menace  of  Mazzinian  republicanism 
supplied  a  shifting  background  before  which  the 
Emperor  held,  in  attitudes  of  Eleusinian  mystery, 
the  centre  of  the  stage.  He  had  permitted  the  war 
to  end  before  it  had  solved  its  problems  with  the 
satisfying  completeness  of  a  fait  accompli,  and  it  was 
not  simple  to  reconcile  his  divergent  impulses  in  a 
single  policy.  His  word  to  Austria,  his  faith  in  Italy, 
and  an  anxious  eye  upon  French  Catholic  opinion 

299 


300  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

drew  him  in  three  directions,  and  he  seemed  to  seek 
refuge  from  an  awkward  choice  in  the  imposing 
attitudes  of  oracular  immobility.  His  tendency  in 
the  autumn  of  1859,  when  the  Peace  of  Villafranca 
was  embodied  in  the  definitive  treaties  of  Zurich,  was 
to  impose  a  provisional  adjustment  of  the  Italian 
question  and  to  defer  for  solution  by  a  European 
congress  the  final  reconstruction  of  Italy.  His  faith 
in  the  collective  wisdom  of  Europe,  which  never  left 
him,  was  pathetic  and  (in  an  observer  familiar  with 
the  congresses  which  followed  the  Peace  of  Vienna, 
although  necessarily  debarred  from  acquaintance 
with  the  more  rococo  series  subsequent  to  the  Peace 
of  Versailles)  surprising.  But  upon  the  question  of 
Italy  it  was  never  tested,  since  the  congress  never 
met.  The  sages  displayed  a  marked  disinclination 
for  one  another's  company,  and  the  project  faded. 

It  was  an  unfortunate  by-product  of  this  design 
that  Church  opinion  in  France,  to  which  all  logic  had 
been  sacrificed  in  the  protective  occupation  of  Rome 
by  a  French  army,  was  profoundly  shocked  by  an 
intrusion  of  common-sense.  A  pamphlet  had  been 
written  to  prepare  the  public  mind  for  the  issues  to 
come  before  the  congress;  it  was  known  to  have  been 
approved  by  the  Emperor,  and  since  it  contained  a 
plain  indication  that  the  maintenance  of  the  Pope's 
territories  in  a  reuniting  Italy  was  a  political  absurd- 
ity, the  suspicion  of  enlightenment  at  the  Tuileries 
sufficed  to  scandalise  clerical  opinion.  The  Catholic 
supporters  of  the  Empire  exchanged  their  loyalty  for 
a  succession  of  hostile  convulsions,  and  a  section  of 
French  journalism  was  devoted  to  solemn  invective 
whilst  the  pulpits  rang  with  the  grave  eloquence  of 
admonitions  to  the  Emperor. 


THE  EMPEROR  301 

A  more  fortunate  by-product  of  the  Italian  ques- 
tion (although  it  resulted  equally  in  the  alienation  of 
a  large  body  of  French  opinion)  was  the  movement 
of  French  policy  closer  to  Great  Britain.  It  was 
obvious  that  if  the  Italian  case  was  to  be  maintained 
in  Europe,  it  must  rest  on  the  support  of  France  and 
England.  The  subjects  of  Queen  Victoria  had  been 
startled  by  French  armaments  into  the  defensive 
attitudes  of  the  Rifle  Volunteers,  and  the  Emperor 
was  anxious  to  recover  their  esteem.  By  a  fortunate 
chance  his  Minister  of  Commerce  was  dining  one 
evening  to  meet  the  remarkable  Mr.  Cobden,  whose 
views  upon  fiscal  matters  were  so  original  and  (to 
French  opinion)  so  diverting.  He  had  an  odd  notion, 
which  he  had  opened  to  a  French  economist  in  the 
congenial  air  of  the  Great  Exhibition,  on  the  subject 
of  Free  Trade  between  France  and  England,  and  he 
was  anxious  to  put  his  fantastic  proposal  before  the 
Emperor.  On  an  autumn  morning  in  1859  he  drove 
out  to  St.  Cloud  for  an  audience,  leaving  Mrs.  Cob- 
den  at  the  hotel.  Reflecting  a  trifle  obviously  on  the 
sumptuary  differences  between  the  President  of  the 
United  States  and  the  Emperor  of  the  French,  he 
was  shown  into  a  room,  where  he  saw  a  short  man 
with  a  large  moustache  whose  'eye  is  not  pleasant  at 
first,  but  it  warms  and  moistens  with  conversation, 
and  gives  you  the  impression  that  he  is  capable  of 
generous  emotions.'  They  discussed  the  new  archi- 
tecture of  Paris  and  the  ineptitude  of  British 
journalists;  Mr.  Cobden  said  that  Mr.  Gladstone 
would  have  a  surplus  in  his  next  Budget  and  was 
anxious  to  reduce  duties  on  French  imports;  the 
Emperor  was  prepared  to  make  similar  concessions 
but  regretted  the  embarrassment  of  a  Protectionist 


302  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

majority  in  his  own  Chamber.  Then,  with  a  pleasing 
ijony,  the  elderly  parliamentarian  and  his  host 
arranged  to  elude  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  by  a  pre- 
rogative use  of  the  treaty-making  power  of  the 
French  Crown.  Something  was  said  about  Sir 
Robert  Peel,  and  the  Emperor  observed  that  he  was 
'charmed  and  flattered  at  the  idea  of  performing  a 
similar  work  in  my  country;  but  it  is  very  difficult 
in  France  to  make  reforms;  we  make  revolutions  in 
France,  not  reforms.' 

Mr.  Cobden  drove  back  to  Paris  and  engaged  in 
conversations  of  detail  with  M.  Fould.  An  invitation 
to  Compiegne  was  declined,  and  the  electors  of  Roch- 
dale were  denied  the  pleasing  spectacle  of  their 
member  and  Mrs.  Cobden  displaying  the  urbanity 
of  Lancashire  among  the  Imperial  parterres.  The 
missionary  of  Free  Trade  returned  to  England  and 
found  the  imagination  of  the  Prime  Minister  obsessed 
by  news  of  French  orders  for  armour-plate  and  rifled 
artillery,  and  a  sinister  story,  which  prevailed  in 
British  politics  for  half  a  century  before  and  half  a 
century  after  it  haunted  Lord  Palmerston  in  1859, 
that  someone  in  a  foreign  port  had  seen  by  a  failing 
light  a  flotilla  of  (monstrum  informe  ing  ens  horren- 
dum)  flat-bottomed  boats.  But  the  negotiation  went 
on;  Mr.  Cobden  returned  to  Paris  and  saw  some- 
thing of  Napoleon  in  his  home  with  his  cigarettes  and 
his  tall  Empress;  angry  French  gentlemen  on  depu- 
tations ran  the  traditional  gamut  of  Protectionist 
argument ;  but  in  three  months  from  that  first  morn- 
ing at  St.  Cloud  a  Commercial  Treaty  was  signed, 
and  whilst  his  sovereign  offered  to  Mr.  Cobden  the 
distinctions  of  baronetcy  or  membership  of  the  Privy 
Council,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  was 


THE  EMPEROR  303 

enabled  to  refresh  his  countrymen  with  Gladstone 
clarets. 

The  Emperor  was  smoking  quietly  over  his  life  of 
Caesar;  M.  Merimee  wrote  notes  for  him  on  Roman 
religion,  and  the  lady  whom  he  had  sent  round  the 
libraries  when  he  was  at  Ham  went  on  archaeological 
errands  into  Germany.  But  the  Italian  question 
continued  to  throw  a  long  shadow.  A  new  minister 
was  installed  at  the  Quai  d'Orsay  who  had  demon- 
strated his  faith  in  the  doctrine  of  nationality  in  the 
unpromising  instance  of  Roumania;  but  M.  Thou- 
venel  was  instructed  in  the  danger  of  public  adhesion 
to  general  principles  by  the  immediate  necessity  of 
annexing  some  Italian  territory.  Nice  and  Savoy 
had  stood  in  the  bond  of  Plombieres  as  the  price 
of  French  assistance;  and  as  Piedmont  rapidly  ex- 
panded, the  Emperor  was  disinclined  to  forego  his 
trifling  honorarium.  Europe  was  startled  by  an 
announcement  that  by  the  exigencies  of  geography 
(it  was  the  old  revolutionary  doctrine  of  natural 
frontiers)  and  by  a  treaty  with  Cavour  the  French 
were  entitled  to  advance  their  south-eastern  frontier 
to  the  watersheds  of  the  Alps.  Queen  Victoria  wrote 
voluble  despatches  about  'spoliation';  Lord  John 
Russell  made  firm  speeches;  the  Prince  Consort 
wrote  wise  letters;  Mr.  Kinglake  denounced  the 
French  annexations  with  all  the  fire  with  which, 
twenty  years  earlier,  he  had  resented  the  appropria- 
tion of  the  blonde  Miss  Howard ;  and  there  was  even 
an  odd  little  wrangle  between  the  Emperor  and  the 
British  ambassador  at  a  Tuileries  concert.  But  the 
world  was  reluctant  to  go  to  war  for  an  Italian 
province.  Mr.  Bright,  whose  appetite  for  a  patriotic 
casus  belli  was  always  of  the  faintest,  said  'Perish 


304  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Savoy!'  and  M.  Benedetti  came  back  from  Turin 
with  the  Piedmontese  consent.  A  plebiscite  in  the 
new  provinces  welcomed  the  change  of  ownership. 
Garibaldi  was  left  staring  at  the  tricolour  over 

'The  little  house  my  father  knew, 

The  olives  and  the  palms  of  Nice/ 

and  before  the  year  was  out,  M.  Thiers  was  rejoicing 
sotto  voce  that  'the  worst  humiliation  of  1815  has 
been  wiped  out,'  whilst  cheering  crowds  sent  the 
Emperor  bowing  through  Savoy,  and  Napoleon  and 
Eugenie  put  out  in  a  stage  barge  from  the  Pont  des 
Amours  under  a  night  of  stars  into  the  Lake  of 
Annecy. 

But  Italy  was  never  still.  There  was  a  queer  thrill 
in  the  south  where  Bombas  son,  with  what  Queen 
Victoria  called  'an  unfortunate  Pietdt  for  the  memory 
of  his  father,'  was  shooting  his  prisoners;  and  from 
an  inn  at  Genoa  Garibaldi  was  beginning  to  look 
southwards.  A  few  cases  of  condemned  muskets 
came  in  by  rail;  a  little  piracy  secured  two  ships  in 
the  harbour;  and  on  a  May  night  he  stood  under  the 
great  moon  on  the  rocks  at  Quarto,  as  the  boats  put 
out  to  sea  and  the  Thousand  faced  towards  Sicily. 
The  Neapolitans  fumbled  with  the  invasion;  and 
whilst  Queen  Victoria  discussed  the  ethics  of  revolu- 
tion with  Lord  John  Russell,  the  world  looked  on  at 
the  hard  fighting  in  the  hills  with  the  cold  stare  of 
impartiality  generally  reserved  by  official  Christen- 
dom for  successful  insurrections  against  the  Sultan 
of  Turkey,  until 

'You've  seen  the  telegram? 
Palermo's  taken,  we  believe.' 


THE  EMPEROR  305 

The  mad  march  went  on;  and  Garibaldi  drove  up 
Italy  in  a  brougham,  whilst  Napoleon  talked  amiably 
about  non-intervention  and  permitted  Italy  to  make 
itself.  His  troops  stood  in  Rome  with  grounded 
arms,  as  the  Thousand  reeled  through  the  roaring 
streets  of  Naples  and  the  slow  tide  of  the  Piedmontese 
advance  washed  over  the  Pope's  territory  in  the 
north.  The  judicious  Leopold  wrote  feverish  letters 
from  Laeken  about  fle  Filibustive  movement  at 
Naples'  and  scandalised  Queen  Victoria  with  the 
bitter  contrast  between  the  canonisation  of  Garibaldi 
at  Naples  and  the  execution  of  General  Walker  in 
Honduras.  Anxious  gentlemen  from  Turin  posted 
over  the  mountains  to  Chambery  to  consult  the 
impassive  face  behind  the  large  moustache.  The 
oracle,  as  is  the  way  of  oracles,  was  silent ;  but  silence, 
at  a  moment  when  the  Garibaldians  were  destroying 
the  Kingdom  of  Naples  and  the  Piedmontese  army 
had  violated  the  Pope's  frontier,  was  consent  enough 
for  Cavour;  and  soon  all  Italy  believed  that  the 
Emperor  (though  he  was  not  above  a  hint  to  Austria 
that  the  Italians  might  be  checked)  had  muttered 
his  blessing — 'Faites,  mais  faites  vite*  or  'Fatte,  ma 
fatte  presto' — and  the  queer  Italian  war  went  on. 
The  Pope's  army,  commanded  by  Lamoriciere,  whose 
name  was  a  reproach  to  Napoleon,  trailed  despond- 
ently into  the  Marches  and  broke  at  Castelfidardo. 
The  Piedmontese  marched  into  Naples  and  Umbria, 
and  before  the  year  was  out  Victor  Emmanuel  was 
proclaimed  King  of  Italy. 

The  French  attitude  had  exasperated  the  Catholics 
and  alarmed  the  English.  Germany  was  nervous; 
and  when  the  Emperor  saw  the  Regent  of  Prussia  at 
Baden,  ele  Prince  Regent  s'est  conduit  vis-d-vis  de 


306  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

moi  comme  une  jeune  file  pudique,  qui  craint  les 
propos  d'un  vert  galant  et  qui  evite  de  se  trouver 
longtemps  seule  avec  lui'  It  remained  to  emphasise 
the  importance  of  France  by  those  operations  against 
unarmed  aboriginal  populations  in  distant  quarters 
of  the  world  which  were  to  be  accepted  in  the  last 
half  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  as  an  unfailing  indi- 
cation of  the  status  of  a  Great  Power.  Disorder  in 
Syria  provoked  a  French  expedition  and  an  im- 
pressive demonstration  of  the  traditional  interest  of 
France  in  the  Levant  (as  well  as  the  literal  truth  of 
the  Imperial  anthem  Partant  pour  la  Syrie),  and 
the  regrettable  persistence  of  Chinese  ideas  in  China 
resulted  in  a  Franco-British  invasion.  The  Taku 
Forts  were  stormed,  and  the  allies  marched  on  Pekin. 
The  mission  of  western  civilisation  was  amply  de- 
monstrated by  the  looting  of  the  Summer  Palace, 
and  honour  was  elaborately  satisfied.  On  the  road 
to  the  capital  the  little  army  brushed  aside  forty 
thousand  Chinamen  armed  with  bows  and  match- 
locks. The  engagement  was  grotesque,  but  the 
French  general  took  a  title  from  its  name.  He  was 
to  be  (how  far  away  it  seemed  in  1860)  the  last 
minister  of  the  Empire;  and  when  the  name  of  a 
Chinese  village  turned  General  Cousin-Montauban 
into  Count  Palikao,  a  faint  sound  of  the  thudding 
guns  of  1870  seemed  to  come  up  the  wind. 


XII 

IN  the  grey  dawn  of  the  Second  Empire,  by  the  cold 
daybreak  of  1852  the  issues  had  been  very  plain. 
The  broad  alternatives  of  Empire  and  revolution 
had  been  sharply  outlined  in  that  clear  light;  and  it 
seemed  so  easy  to  save  society,  so  simple  to  strike 
enlightened  international  attitudes  on  the  European 
stage.  Slowly  the  day  broadened,  and  under  a 
mounting  sun  the  Empire  moved  towards  high  noon. 
In  the  blaze  of  it  there  were  French  victories,  an  heir, 
a  smiling  Empress,  and  the  world  seemed  waiting  for 
Napoleon  to  remake  it.  But  the  day  drew  on,  and 
in  the  milder  light  of  afternoon  the  outlines  blurred. 
The  old  certainties  seemed  to  lose  something  of  their 
sharpness  and  to  fade,  as  doubts  began  to  grow  on  the 
slow  minds  of  France  and  Europe,  and  the  paths  of 
the  Empire  became  less  clear.  The  sun  was  still 
high,  and  the  Emperor  paced  slowly  in  the  sunlight. 
Yet  it  was  past  noon,  and  the  shadows  began  to  fall 
longer  on  the  ground.  There  were  deaths  round  the 
Emperor:  Jerome,  the  old  King  of  Westphalia, 
faded  unimpressively  out  of  life  into  the  legend  of 
the  First  Empire,  and  the  Empress  wore  black  for 
her  sister,  the  Spanisk  duchess.  There  was  a  faint 
air  of  evening  upon  the  Empire.  Soon  the  light 
would  fade,  and  it  would  be  night. 

It  had  been  simple  enough  in  the  first  movement 
of  the  Empire  for  a  man  not  far  past  forty  to  govern 

307 


308  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

France.  Centralisation  was  the  administrative  tra- 
dition of  Bonapartism,  and  a  single  will  made  all 
decisions.  They  were  transmitted  to  the  nation  by 
the  Imperial  machine,  and  the  functions  of  ministers 
rarely  exceeded  the  limited  duty  of  supervising  its 
smooth  running.  Ability  is  not  encouraged  by 
absolutism  of  this  order;  his  surroundings,  as  an 
observer  wrote  of  them,  were  'des  outils  et  .  .  .  pas 
de  compagnons'  and  since  the  Emperor  needed  no 
collaborators,  he  had  found  none.  'Le  maitre'  as  M. 
Merimee  saw  him,  'n'admet  pas  trop,  je  le  crains, 
qu'il  y  ait  des  hommes  necessaires*  But  under  the 
pressure  of  a  later  phase  he  began  to  be  conscious  of 
the  need.  His  ministers  had  been  little  more  than 
a  procession  of  self-seeking  mediocrities,  each  willing 
to  subordinate  his  policy  to  the  Emperor's,  but  all 
consolable  for  their  subjection  by  the  gratifying 
proximity  of  the  public  purse — M.  Fould  the  banker, 
who  drifted  into  statesmanship  after  a  financial 
career  that  had  been  far,  so  very  far,  from  exem- 
plary; the  grave  Baroche  pocketing  sinecures  for  his 
unpleasant  son;  M.  Walewski,  whose  policy  was  so 
apt  to  vary  with  his  investments;  the  hungry  Hauss- 
mann,  whose  municipal  finance  inspired  irreverent 
comments  on  the  Comptes  fantastiques  d'Hauss- 
mann;  and  the  simpler  appetites  of  the  smaller  men. 
Their  master  had  been  indifferent  in  the  choice  of 
his  servants  since  he  disbelieved  in  the  efficacy  of 
human  action  to  change  the  course  of  events  and  was 
content  to  rely,  for  such  action  as  he  took,  upon 
himself.  But  as  the  scene  darkened  and  the  Emperor 
began  to  grope  in  the  gathering  gloom,  he  needed 
(and  never  found)  a  minister  of  the  great  tradition. 
There  was  no  Louvet  and  no  Colbert;  and  for  ten 


THE  EMPEROR  309 

years  he  was  left  muttering,  as  he  had  said  almost 
fretfully  to  the  Prince  Consort  at  Osborne:  lOu 
trouver  I'homme?' 

His  choice  was  cruelly  limited  by  his  circle. 
Persigny,  who  alternated  between  the  embassy  in 
London  and  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior,  was  loyal 
to  the  point  of  tactlessness;  but  he  had  been  in- 
delibly impressed  by  his  early  reading  with  the  ruth- 
less absolutism  of  the  First  Empire.  M.  Rouher  had 
a  lawyer's  aptitude  for  detail  and  considerable  elo- 
quence ;  but  his  political  ideals  were  those  of  a  police- 
man ;  and  when  the  Emperor's  design  drifted  towards 
an  infusion  of  parliamentarism  into  the  Imperial 
system,  the  dilution  of  strong  government  was  repel- 
lent to  his  minister,  and  M.  Rouher  permitted 
'the  fragile  parliamentary  experiment  of  the  later 
Empire  to  fail  under  his  heavy  hands.  One  man 
perhaps  might  have  made  a  minister  of  the  first  order. 
M.  de  Morny  possessed  the  airy  accomplishments 
of  a  diplomat  of  romance;  but  he  was  rarely  em- 
ployed abroad,  since  the  Empire  required  all  its 
diplomacy  at  home.  He  was  a  strange  figure,  with 
an  aptitude  for  light  comedy  and  the  happy  applica- 
tion of  official  information  to  his  private  speculations 
— 'un  bandit,3  as  someone  saw  him,  'tombe  dans  la 
peau  d'un  vaudevilliste'  His  elegance  (they  called 
his  house  in  Paris  lle  petit  coin  d' amour')  seemed  to 
date  from  an  earlier  age  of  frivolity  in  high  places; 
and  when  Flahaut  was  French  ambassador  in 
London  and  the  memory  of  Hortense  was  embalmed 
in  the  aromatic  sanctity  of  the  Imperial  legend,  their 
son  sauntered  gracefully  through  French  politics, 
facing  the  world  with  the  well-dressed  irony  of  Mr. 
Brummell.  One  of  his  clerks  at  the  Palais  Bourbon 


310  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

was  a  young  man  named  Daudet — Jantastique  em- 
ploye a  criniere  Merovingienne' — and  when  the  Duke 
offered  him  the  post,  the  solemn  youth  warned  him, 
with  all  the  pomposity  of  an  extremist,  that  he  was  a 
royalist.  There  was  a  bland,  slow  smile,  and  Morny 
replied:  'L'Imperatrice  Vest  aussi/  He  lounged  in 
his  easy  way  into  French  fiction ;  and  M.  Zola's  docu- 
ments compiled  M.  de  Marsy,  whilst  M.  Daudet's 
observation  sketched  the  Due  de  Mora.  It  was  an 
engaging  person ;  but  he  had  few  beliefs.  Democracy 
did  not  alarm  him,  because  one  could  always  captivate 
the  democrats;  and  in  this  mood  he  joined  in  the 
Emperor's  drift  towards  parliamentary  government. 
Yet  he  was  never  a  minister,  sitting  always  as  Presi- 
dent of  the  Chamber,  standing  between  the  Emperor 
and  the  politicians,  holding  himself  perpetually  in 
reserve,  until  he  died. 

French  opinion  in  1860  was  beginning  to  stir.  Its 
rest  had  been  seriously  interrupted,  and  the  Imperial 
lullaby  was  ceasing  to  soothe  it.  Moustachu  was 
still  popular  in  the  streets  although  they  were  some- 
times disrespectful  about  his  lady,  la  Heine  Crino- 
line. But  Mr.  Cobden's  Commercial  Treaty  had 
roused  the  manufacturing  interests;  the  desertion  of 
the  Pope  scandalised  those  numerous  persons  who 
confused  their  religious  beliefs  with  an  adherence  to 
the  Temporal  Power;  and  the  unheroic  gentlemen 
who  sat  at  the  Palais  Bourbon  under  the  suave  tutel- 
age of  M.  de  Morny  and  his  bell  were  beginning  to 
lose  (it  may  have  been  due  to  the  Emperor's  policies 
or  to  the  dreadful  proximity,  the  republican  contami- 
nation of  the  Five)  their  native  docility.  Morny 
observed  the  need  and  responded  with  a  modest  plan 
for  increasing  the  liberties  of  the  Chamber;  he  said 


THE  EMPEROR  311 

as  much  to  M.  Darimon,  one  of  the  reckless  Five. 
Someone  consulted  M.  Thiers  as  a  retired  expert  on 
parliamentary  institutions,  and  one  afternoon  at 
Council  the  Emperor  informed  his  ministers  that  he 
proposed  to  make  a  change.  Two  days  later,  on 
November  24,  1860,  the  decree  was  signed;  and  true 
Bonapartist  opinion  was  scandalised  by  the  intrusion 
of  liberties  which  approximated  to  those  enjoyed  by 
the  Parliaments  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 

Under  the  new  system  the  two  Chambers  were 
permitted  to  vote  (and  even  to  discuss)  an  Address 
in  reply  to  the  Speech  from  the  Throne;  the  pro- 
cedure on  amendment  was  simplified;  debates  might 
in  future  be  reported  in  full;  and  the  Government 
proposed  to  justify  its  proceedings  to  the  Chamber 
by  the  arguments  of  a  new  class  of  ministers  without 
portfolio,  whose  sole  official  duty  was  eloquence.  M. 
Billault,  a  harassed-looking  gentleman  with  con- 
siderable powers  of  speech,  was  appointed  to  wrestle 
with  the  strange  forces  of  democracy,  and  the  Empire 
passed  into  its  new  phase.  M.  de  Morny  asked  M. 
Ollivier  whether  he  was  satisfied,  and  the  mild  eyes 
gleamed  at  him  almost  sternly  behind  the  narrow 
spectacles :  'Si  c'est  une  fin,  vous  etes  perdus;  si  c'est 
un  commencement,  vous  etes  fondes/  It  was  a 
strange  admission  for  a  republican.  But  the  young 
man  (he  was  under  forty)  had  travelled  a  long  way 
since  he  was  a  bewildered  official  of  the  Second 
Republic.  The  treadmill  of  opposition  (he  was 
perpetually  delivering  admirable  speeches  to  a 
mausoleum  of  indifference  or  an  inferno  of  interrup- 
tion) was  beginning  to  impress  its  barrenness  upon 
his  sensitive  intelligence.  The  world  is  so  much 
simpler  for  bigots  than  for  philosophers;  and  a  less 


312  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

active  mind  would  have  found  it  easy  to  solve  every 
problem  with  a  republican  cliche.  All  round  him  the 
orthodox  republicans  were  murmuring  their  incanta- 
tions with  religious  monotony,  and  he  met  a  bull- 
necked  young  barrister  at  the  Manets  one  evening 
(the  name  was  Gambetta)  who  was  pounding  the 
table-tops  of  the  Cafe  Procope  with  a  heavier  fist, 
as  a  new  voice  from  the  Midi  sent  the  infamies  of 
the  Empire  vibrating  among  the  chandeliers.  Yet 
Ollivier  saw  too  much  of  the  republicans  to  believe 
completely  in  the  Republic;  perhaps  Lamennais  had 
been  right  when  he  said  in  his  bitterness,  fLes  repu- 
blicains  sont  faits  pour  rendre  republique  impossible' 
One  could  not  always  strike  Roman  attitudes,  and 
republican  perorations  were  hardly  in  themselves  a 
substitute  for  good  government.  If  only  one  could 
believe  that  the  Emperor's  drift  into  constitu- 
tionalism was  sincere,  was  deliberate,  was  a  step  in 
a  system,  then  France  might  be  governed  in  ordered 
liberty,  and  M.  Ollivier  might  return  from  the  husks 
of  republicanism  to  take  a  prodigal  hand  in  its 
government.  The  solution  had  a  tepid  air  of  com- 
promise; it  lacked  the  devastating  logic  of  revolu- 
tions. But  M.  Ollivier  could  write,  'Mieux  vaut  vivre 
dans  une  constitution  iUogique  que  de  mourir  pour 
la  logique.'  The  sentiment  was  hardly  French;  but 
it  was  forming  in  the  mind  of  at  least  one  French- 
man, and  one  can  see  beyond  it  the  faint  dawn  of  the 
Liberal  Empire. 

The  experiment,  which  began  in  1860,  was  an  odd 
one.  It  was  an  attempt  to  govern  France  by  the 
collaboration  of  men  who  did  not  believe  in  liberty 
with  men  who  did  not  believe  in  the  Empire;  and 
the  Emperor's  circle  stared  a  little  when  M.  Ollivier 


THE  EMPEROR  313 

opened  the  politics  of  1861  with  a  speech  in  which 
he  seemed  to  offer  republican  support  to  a  parlia- 
mentary Empire: 

'Quant  a  moi  qui  suis  republicain,  j'admirerais,  j'ap- 
puierais,  et  mon  appui  serait  d'autant  plus  efficace  qu'il 
serait  completement  desinteresse.' 

There  were  debates  in  the  Chamber  upon  real 
issues,  and  M.  Merimee,  whose  Liberalism  was  a 
trifle  rusty,  wrote  letters  of  grave  concern  to  his 
friend  Mr.  Panizzi  of  the  British  Museum.  Con- 
troversy centred  on  the  perpetual  problem  of  Rome ; 
they  sold  a  puzzle  named  after  it  in  the  streets;  and 
as  the  Pope  became  the  leading  figure  in  French 
politics,  the  clericals  began  to  give  tongue  against  the 
Empire.  But  stranger  things  than  the  new  voices  of 
the  Chamber  were  heard  in  Paris.  Everybody  was 
at  the  Opera  one  evening  in  March  to  see  the  pre- 
posterous new  piece,  all  pilgrims  and  discords,  which 
the  Emperor  had  imported  from  Germany.  They 
called  it  Tannhauser,  and  anyone  could  see  that  M. 
Berlioz  was  right  when  he  denounced  the  new  barbar- 
ism of  Herr  Wagner.  One  could  hardly  doubt,  if 
one  had  heard  enough  Rossini  and  Meyerbeer,  that 
opera  was  a  succession  of  tinkling  melodies  punctu- 
ated by  a  ballet,  and  persons  of  taste  were  outraged 
by  the  sonorous  anarchy  of  the  new  revelation.  The 
Emperor,  who  had  no  ear,  might  applaud  as  an  act  of 
foreign  policy;  Madame  de  Metternich  clapped  holes 
in  her  gloves  and  broke  a  fan;  and  M.  Ollivier  (he 
was  Liszt's  son-in-law — it  was  just  what  one  would 
expect  of  a  republican)  must  have  felt  quite  at  home 
defying  a  hostile  majority.  But  the  house  hooted, 
and  French  culture  was  noisily  upheld. 

The  drift  of  politics  continued  through  the  year. 


314  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Italy  toiled  wearily  through  the  maze  of  the  Roman 
question;  Cavour  died  as  impulsively  as  he  had 
lived;  French  clericals  were  dragged  by  their  loyalty 
to  the  Church  into  dislike  of  the  Emperor;  and  the 
strange  transformation  of  the  Empire  went  on.  Late 
in  the  year  (the  decree  was  dated  November  14, 
1861)  Napoleon  by  a  sudden  gesture  restored  to  the 
Chamber  the  control  of  the  public  purse.  Supply 
was  to  be  voted  almost  in  the  English  fashion,  and 
M.  de  Morny  met  someone  at  a  first  night  (the  play 
was  by  a  young  man  named  Sardou)  and  expressed 
himself  well  pleased.  The  Empire  was  becoming 
almost  perceptibly  parliamentary,  and  before  the 
recess  of  1862  M.  Ollivier  for  the  first  time  risked  his 
republican  chastity  in  the  compromising  privacy  of 
Morny's  room.  They  talked  vaguely  of  the  future, 
of  a  constitutional  Empire,  of  a  ministry  in  which 
M.  de  Morny  might  lead  and  M.  Ollivier  might  serve, 
until  (it  was  a  little  ominous)  M.  Benedetti  came  in 
from  Turin. 

Outside  France  the  world  lived  in  a  succession  of 
problems,  to  each  of  which  the  Emperor  seemed 
anxious  to  apply  a  uniform  solution  consisting  (it 
seemed  ridiculous  in  1860,  but  it  was  the  wisdom  of 
1918)  of  a  congress  and  the  principle  of  nationality. 
The  method  had  already  been  attempted  in  the  case 
of  Italy,  where  its  success  seemed  only  to  be  delayed 
by  the  illogical  survival  of  the  Papacy.  The  Em- 
peror appeared  to  desire  a  repetition  of  the  ex- 
periment when  the  Poles  went  out  against  their 
masters  in  1863.  There  was  a  spate  of  Notes  and 
despatches.  But  in  a  world  which  knew  its  lessons 
(and  one  could  teach  them  as  one  sat  smoking  at  the 
Tuileries)  the  Polish  question  and  the  hovering 


THE  EMPEROR  315 

problems  of  Rome,  Greece,  the  Elbe  Duchies,  and 
the  Danubian  Principalities  would  all  be  quite  simple, 
because  all  Italy  would  be  Italian,  Poland  would  be 
Polish,  Germany  would  be  German,  and  even  in 
the  Baltic  the  little  kingdoms  of  the  north  would 
combine  in  a  logical  unit.  It  was  so  easy  to  recon- 
struct Europe  with  a  blank  map  and  a  coloured 
pencil,  and  nothing  but  the  obstinate  pretence  that 
the  settlement  of  1815  was  immutable  prevented  the 
reconstruction.  The  imagination  of  Napoleon  III. 
was  haunted  by  the  malicious  shadow  of  the  Peace  of 
Vienna.  It  had  degraded  his  country,  insulted  his 
family,  and  cramped  his  project.  He  was  a  Bona- 
parte, and  to  revise  it  would  be  almost  to  reverse 
Waterloo.  Twice  at  least,  to  the  blushing  Prince 
Albert  in  1857  and  to  the  less  easily  scandalised  Lord 
Palmer ston  in  1863,  he  proposed  a  revision  of  the 
political  structure  of  Europe.  The  proposal  was  even 
embodied  in  a  general  circular  to  the  Powers.  But  the 
Prince  was  stiffly  discouraging  and  'begged  him,' 
with  a  rare  approach  to  gesticulation,  'to  open  the 
book  of  history,  which  lay  before  him';  whilst  Lord 
Palmerston,  who  although  he  was  a  Liberal  rarely 
forgot  that  he  was  a  landowner,  felt  that  'those  who 
hold  their  estates  under  a  good  title,  now  nearly  half 
a  century  old,  might  not  be  particularly  desirous  of 
having  it  brought  under  discussion  with  all  the  altera- 
tions which  good-natured  neighbours  might  wish  to 
suggest  in  their  boundaries.'  The  project  was 
rendered  still  more  ridiculous  by  a  romantic  design 
that  the  agenda  of  the  conference  should  include  the 
limitation  of  European  armaments — 'des  armements 
exageres  entretenus  par  de  mutuelles  defiances1 — 
and  when  it  dropped,  the  Emperor  was  left  alone 


316  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

with  his  large  intentions.  His  policy  was  losing 
something  of  its  old  directness,  and  he  seemed  to 
stray  among  the  diplomats  with  the  lost  air  of  a  man 
of  principle  in  a  Peace  Conference.  His  fiendish 
cunning  (even  Mr.  Disraeli  alarmed  his  old  ladies 
with  mysterious  allusions  to  'the  great  Imperial 
Sphinx')  was  one  of  the  tenderest  illusions  of  a 
romantic  age.  But  a  Prussian  ambassador,  who 
spent  a  few  months  in  Paris,  was  more  sceptical.  His 
name  was  von  Bismarck,  and  he  had  already  epito- 
mised Russia  as  Nitchevo.  He  found  that  France 
contained  'deux  femmes  amusantes,  I'lmperatrice,  la 
plus  belle  femme  que  je  connaisse,  et  la  Walewska, 
mais  pas  un  Jiomme'  and  of  the  Imperial  facade  he 
said:  fDe  loin  c'est  quelque  chose  et  de  pres  ce  nest 
rien? 

With  a  faint  air  of  confusion  the  country  drifted 
into  the  elections  of  1863.  The  Emperor  was  deep 
in  the  career  of  Julius  Caesar;  archaeologists  were 
entertained  by  preposterous  models  of  triremes,  and 
ballistae  threw  Roman  projectiles  about  in  the  park 
of  St.  Cloud,  whilst  his  ministers  concerted  plans 
with  M.  de  Persigny  for  the  regimentation  of  French 
opinion.  There  was  a  vague  stir  of  political  ideas  in 
the  country,  and  manipulation  was  obviously  neces- 
sary if  the  admirable  unanimity  of  1857  was  to  be 
retained  in  the  new  Chamber.  The  work  was  con- 
genial to  Persigny,  who  circularised  his  Prefets  in 
language  that  was  almost  apocalyptic:  'Fort  de  son 
origine  providentielle,  Velu  du  peuple  a  realise  toutes 
les  esperances  de  la  France.'  But  in  case  opinion 
was  insufficiently  informed  of  this  axiom,  the  public 
memory  was  to  receive  official  assistance  at  the 
Prefecture: 


THE  EMPEROR  317 

'Le  suffrage  est  libre.  Mais,  afin  que  la  bonne  foi  des 
populations  ne  puisse  etre  trompee  par  des  habiletes  de 
langage  ou  des  professions  de  foi  equivoques,  designer 
hautement,  comme  dans  les  elections  precedentes,  les 
candidats  qui  inspirent  le  plus  de  confiance  au  Gouverne- 
ment,  Que  les  populations  sachent.'  .  .  . 

As  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  sat  writing  in  his 
room,  a  sound  of  voices  seemed  to  drift  across  the 
long  silence  of  the  Empire,  like  the  first  movements 
of  a  dawning  day.  The  republicans  were  renewing 
their  old  incitements,  and  the  royalists  of  every  shade 
were  crying  their  old  wares.  The  clericals  formed  a 
strange  opposition  of  the  Right,  and  even  M.  Thiers 
took  a  hand.  There  was  a  queer  coalition  of  republi- 
cans and  bishops;  old  gentlemen  who  desired  the 
Republic  of  1848  combined  with  still  older  gentle- 
men who  desired  the  monarchy  of  King  Charles  X., 
and  gentlemen  in  middle  life  whose  simpler  aspira- 
tions were  satisfied  by  the  monarchy  of  King  Louis 
Philippe.  The  language  of  the  Government  became 
more  violent ;  the  Prefets  redoubled  their  persuasions 
in  favour  of  the  official  candidates;  and  Persigny, 
who  seemed  to  a  contemporary  'enivre  au  cabaret  de 
la  puissance,3  dictated  loudly  to  his  countrymen.  In 
the  provinces  his  orders  were  obeyed ;  but  the  republi- 
cans swept  Paris,  and  the  elections  of  1863  sent  an 
Opposition  of  thirty-two  Deputies  to  the  Chamber, 
of  whom  seventeen  were  republicans.  M.  Ollivier 
sat  with  MM.  Jules  Favre,  Jules  Simon,  and 
Thiers;  and  whilst  their  young  friends  Ferry  and 
Gambetta  sat  cheering  behind  them  in  the  gallery, 
one  seems  to  see  gliding  into  place  the  men  of  the 
Third  Republic. 


XIII 

ON  a  winter  day  towards  the  end  of  1861  the  port 
of  Vera  Cruz  observed  without  enthusiasm  the  arrival 
of  a  Spanish  fleet  in  Mexican  waters.  The  troops 
were  landed,  and  six  thousand  men  in  the  uniform  of 
Queen  Isabella  marched  off  in  the  sunshine  to  the 
empty  forts.  Early  in  the  new  year  more  ships  ap- 
peared on  the  skyline.  A  British  admiral  came 
ashore,  and  a  naval  brigade  swung  up  the  narrow 
street.  On  the  next  day  there  was  more  movement 
in  the  harbour.  A  French  squadron  had  put  in,  and 
they  were  landing  some  marines.  A  battalion  of 
Zouaves  went  up  into  the  town,  and  the  adventure 
of  Mexico  had  begun. 

The  Mexican  expedition  was,  in  its  first  phase,  a 
bond-holders'  war.  The  weakness  of  the  Latin  in- 
telligence for  homicide  as  a  form  of  political  argu- 
ment has  frequently  endangered  the  security  of 
foreign  investors,  and  it  is  rarely  consistent  with  the 
regular  payment  of  interest.  Mexico,  which  had 
enjoyed  the  amenities  of  civil  war  for  a  generation, 
was  a  cause  of  frequent  anxiety.  Each  of  its  compet- 
ing Presidents  (there  were  two)  had  misappropri- 
ated foreign  funds  and  responded  to  complaints  with 
exquisite  courtesy  and  a  receipt  for  the  stolen 
money;  and  the  misgivings  of  its  European  creditors 
had  been  recently  confirmed  when  President  Juarez, 
who  was  at  the  moment  in  control  of  the  capital  and 

318 


THE  EMPEROR  319 

the  greater  part  of  the  country,  suspended  for  two 
years  the  payment  of  foreign  debts.  The  simple 
directness  of  his  financial  methods  caused  some  alarm 
in  London  and  Paris,  where  Mexican  securities  were 
largely  held.  Spanish  interests  were  also  concerned 
in  the  insolvency  of  Mexico,  and  the  wheels  of 
diplomacy  began  slowly  to  revolve.  But  from  the 
first  the  motives  of  the  three  Powers  lacked  uni- 
formity. Great  Britain  alone  was  actuated  by  the 
simple  appetites  of  the  debt-collector.  In  Madrid 
there  were  a  vague  desire  to  regild  the  glories  of  the 
Spanish  flag,  to  castigate  these  rebellious  colonists, 
perhaps  (who  knows?)  to  re-establish  across  America 
the  old  belt  of  Spanish  domination;  whilst  a  still 
stranger  project  haunted  the  brooding  intelligence 
at  the  Tuileries.  The  Emperor  had  once  stayed  at 
the  Washington  Hotel,  Broadway,  and  he  suffered 
for  thirty  years  from  the  hallucination  that  he  under- 
stood America.  Its  problems  had  haunted  him  in 
his  little  room  at  Ham,  when  gentlemen  from 
Nicaragua  waited  on  him  and  he  made  sketch-maps 
of  the  Candle  Napoleone;  and  the  fascination  re- 
mained with  him.  His  facile  imagination  was 
obsessed  by  the  importance  of  Central  America;  it 
seemed  to  him  to  lie  central  to  the  whole  world,  and 
with  the  control  of  it  one  might  even  redress  the 
balance  of  races  and  check  with  a  strong  barrier  of 
Latin  culture  the  rising  tide  of  expansion,  which 
seemed  to  set  southwards  from  the  United  States  and 
to  threaten  the  absorption  of  the  American  continent 
by  the  mercenary  and  phlegmatic  Anglo-Saxon. 
The  slow  drift  of  his  project  (it  had  other  phases 
more  intimately  connected  with  the  affairs  of 
Europe)  was  quickened  by  the  political  exiles  whom 


320  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Mexican  revolutions,  like  another  Gulf  Stream, 
brought  steadily  to  the  coasts  of  Europe.  Paris  was 
full  of  little  men  from  Mexico  with  magnificent 
names  and  unimpressive  appearances,  who  could  talk 
Spanish  to  the  Empress  and  assure  her  husband  that 
their  unhappy  country  (had  he  not  written  elo- 
quently on  the  subject  in  the  days  of  his  own  exile?) 
was  thirsting  for  good  government,  a  monarchy,  and 
the  kindly  tutelage  of  the  Church.  The  conversa- 
tion of  refugees  is  rarely  a  sound  foundation  for 
policy.  But  the  Emperor  listened  impassively  and 
went  back  to  his  old  plan.  As  early  as  1857  he  had 
discussed  the  romance  of  a  European,  even  a 
Bourbon  monarchy  in  Mexico  in  the  congenial  com- 
pany of  Mr.  Disraeli.  Sometimes  he  was  less  in- 
terested in  the  Mexican  monarchy  than  in  its 
monarch.  It  was  becoming  difficult  to  recruit  for 
thrones.  A  deputation  of  embarrassed  Greeks  even 
pursued  Lord  Derby  with  a  crown.  But  Archdukes 
were  always  to  be  had;  and  an  offer  of  the  new 
Mexican  throne  in  Vienna  might  please  Franz- 
Joseph.  With  Austrian  goodwill  the  Emperor  could 
perhaps  complete  his  work  in  Italy,  carry  the  new 
Kingdom  'from  the  Alps  to  the  Adriatic'  and  restore 
Venetia.  Le  spectre  de  Venise  erre  dans  les  salles  des 
Tuileries.  As  it  beckoned,  the  Emperor  went  for- 
ward into  Mexico  and  took  with  him  Maximilian. 

The  moment,  late  in  1861,  was  not  ill  chosen.  The 
Americans  were  certain  to  object;  but  they  were 
deep  in  their  own  Civil  War,  and  one  might  make  a 
new  Mexico  whilst  their  armies  were  busy  fumbling 
for  one  another  on  the  Potomac.  The  Empress  was 
gratified  by  the  atmosphere  of  royalism  and  ortho- 
doxy in  which  one  could  chastise  the  erring  republic, 


THE  EMPEROR  321 

and  M.  de  Morny  was  friendly  to  the  idea;  by  a 
happy  coincidence  he  was  entitled  to  one  third  of  the 
profits  which  would  accrue  to  M.  Jecker,  a  person  of 
the  indeterminate  nationality  peculiar  to  bankers, 
upon  the  expulsion  of  President  Juarez.  Shares  rose 
in  Paris  when  men  said  'Morny  est  dans  I'affaire' 
So  the  Emperor  was  sympathetic  to  the  cause  of  the 
French  bondholders;  and  when  a  Spanish  general 
followed  him  to  Vichy  with  proposals  for  a  joint  ex- 
pedition, his  Catalan  vehemence  was  well  received. 
The  three  Powers  made  an  agreement  in  London,  to 
which  the  United  States  were  invited  to  become  a 
party.  But  the  State  Department  was  disinclined  to 
involve  Mr.  Lincoln  in  a  second  war  in  the  American 
continent ;  and  Secretary  Seward,  whose  urbanity  had 
been  severely  tried  by  the  Odyssey  of  Messrs.  Slidell 
and  Mason,  replied  with  a  pious  reference  to  the 
father  of  his  country  and  the  distasteful  nature  of 
entangling  alliances.  The  expedition  proceeded 
without  American  approval,  and  two  admirals  and 
General  Prim  sailed  for  Vera  Cruz  to  embody  the 
mixed  feelings  of  their  Governments. 

Their  arrival,  with  one  exception,  was  unimpres- 
sive. But  the  spectacular  disembarkation  of  General 
Prim  (he  brought  a  considerable  staff  and  a  military 
reputation  obtained  chiefly  in  Morocco)  impressed  a 
local  journalist  with  his  marked  resemblance  to  the 
angel  of  death,  a  number  of  historical  characters,  and 
almost  all  the  more  prominent  figures  of  classical 
mythology.  He  was  an  active  little  man  with  a 
Mexican  wife;  and  if  there  was  to  be  a  monarchy  in 
Mexico,  he  was  not  averse  to  being  cheered  in  the 
streets  of  Vera  Cruz.  But  promiscuous  equitation 
and  gratuitous  reminiscences  of  heroic  deeds  on  the 


322  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Tetuan  road  got  the  allies  little  further.  The 
Mexican  government  seemed  politely  indifferent  to 
the  presence  of  an  invasion  at  Vera  Cruz.  Immi- 
grants in  that  region  were  offered  the  uninviting 
alternatives  of  yellow  fever  and  vomito  negro;  and 
as  the  expeditionary  force  began  to  evacuate  its 
casualties  to  Havana,  the  allies  formulated  their 
demands.  By  agreement  with  the  Mexicans  they 
moved  forward  from  the  fever  zone  into  the  more 
tolerable  hinterland,  and  a  conference  was  arranged 
in  convenient  proximity  to  a  volcano.  But  it  never 
met.  Allied  relations  had  been  chilled  by  the  in- 
clusion in  the  French  claim  of  an  immediate  payment 
for  M.  Jecker ;  and  as  the  political  design  underlying 
the  French  demarche  became  gradually  obvious,  the 
alliance  was  resolved  into  its  atoms.  The  knowledge 
that  Mexican  emigres  were  approaching  an  Austrian 
Archduke  at  Trieste  extinguished  General  Prim's 
interest  in  the  expedition,  and  the  British  minister 
was  frankly  hostile  to  the  idea  of  disturbing  Presi- 
dent Juarez  for  the  furtherance  of  reactionary  ambi- 
tions. Trouble  had  already  been  caused  by  the 
appearance  at  Vera  Cruz  of  a  rival  President  in 
partibus  infidelium;  and  when  the  French  insisted 
upon  protecting  a  Mexican  of  doubtful  antecedents 
for  no  better  reason  than  his  hostility  to  the  govern- 
ment of  his  country,  their  allies  abandoned  the  ex- 
pedition and  the  sails  of  their  transports  faded  away 
into  the  Gulf. 

The  French  admiral  was  recalled,  reinforcements 
sailed  from  Cherbourg,  and  General  Lorencez  was 
left  looking  for  a  royalist  party  in  the  hot  distances 
of  the  tierras  calientes.  As  the  spring  of  1862 
deepened  into  summer,  Mexico  lay  unmoved  in  the 


THE  EMPEROR  323 

sunshine.  The  emigres  at  French  headquarters  grew 
eloquent  upon  the  approaching  rising  of  their  people. 
A  few  Mexicans  trailed  in  with  their  sandals  and 
their  brown  women,  and  some  generals  came  over  in 
search  of  further  promotion.  Lorencez  clamoured 
for  an  Archduke  to  proclaim  and  inform  his  govern- 
ment that  he  was  the  master  of  Mexico:  it  was 
a  strange  delusion.  Late  in  April  he  moved  up  from 
the  coast  to  take  possession  of  the  country.  Mexico 
City  was  a  hundred  miles  away,  and  he  had  six  thou- 
sand men.  In  the  first  week  of  May  they  reached  La 
Puebla.  The  local  royalists  were  curiously  silent; 
there  was  no  loyal  demonstration,  and  the  bells  were 
not  ringing.  The  Mexicans  misunderstood  their  kind 
invaders;  it  became  necessary  to  force  an  entrance, 
and  in  a  scuffle  for  an  outwork  of  the  town  the  French 
were  beaten  off.  Lorencez  fell  back  towards  the  sea, 
and  his  name  was  tossed  into  the  new  grave  of  mili- 
tary reputations. 

By  a  broad  window  on  the  Adriatic  a  tall  young 
man  was  watching  the  queer  struggle  in  Mexico. 
His  name  was  Maximilian,  and  his  brother  was 
Emperor  of  Austria.  He  had  a  dark  young  wife 
(she  was  a  Coburg  from  Brussels)  and  that  diversity 
of  accomplishments  which  passes,  in  the  case  of 
royalty,  for  culture.  After  a  creditable  career  in  the 
Austrian  navy  (he  looked  well  in  uniform)  and  a 
brief,  embarrassed  interlude  in  the  Governor's  palace 
at  Milan,  he  had  withdrawn  to  a  castle  by  the  sea 
where  his  good  manners,  his  botanical  collections  and 
the  finest  pair  of  whiskers  in  Europe  impressed  his 
contemporaries  with  his  aptitude  for  kingship.  But 
when  vague  murmurs  of  an  empire  in  Mexico  floated 
down  to  Miramar,  he  replied  that  the  Mexican  people 


324  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

must  first  express  their  will.  Such  familiarity  with 
modern  principles  was  highly  creditable  in  a  Haps- 
burg,  and  he  watched  without  enthusiasm  the  mani- 
festation of  Mexican  opinion  which  swept  the  French 
half-way  back  to  the  coast. 

Lorencez  had  stumbled  into  defeat  before  La 
Puebla,  and  he  dragged  the  Empire  after  him  into 
war  in  Mexico.  The  first,  instinctive  movement  of 
official  opinion  in  France  was  an  invincible  feeling 
that  military  honour  must  be  retrieved  by  a  victory 
over  the  egregious  subjects  of  President  Juarez: 
after  that,  it  would  be  time  enough  to  consider  the 
future  of  Mexico.  As  the  French  held  their  ground 
at  Orizaba  between  the  Mexicans  and  the  mosquitoes 
of  the  fever  zone,  the  Emperor  from  the  cool  shade 
of  Vichy  abounded  in  telegraphic  advice  upon  the 
discomforts  of  the  climate.  He  proposed  a  new 
tropical  uniform;  he  suggested  the  construction  of 
a  line  of  railway  from  Vera  Cruz ;  and  he  monopolised 
the  only  good  map  of  Mexico  which  his  country 
possessed.  An  army  corps  was  concentrated  at  the 
ports,  and  the  command  of  the  new  expeditionary 
force  was  transferred  to  General  Forey;  his  divi- 
sional generals  (the  names  were  a  trifle  ominous) 
were  Felix  Douay  and  Bazaine.  Late  in  the  year 
they  stumbled  up  to  Orizaba,  and  in  the  first  months 
of  1863  Forey  prepared  with  Mexican  deliberation  to 
advance  up-country.  There  was  heavy  fighting  out- 
side La  Puebla ;  the  town  was  fortified,  and  the  French 
settled  down  to  a  siege  of  nine  weeks.  A  relieving 
army  hovered  vaguely  round;  but  it  was  beaten  off 
by  Bazaine,  and  La  Puebla  surrendered.  The  road 
to  Mexico  was  open;  and  as  the  French  marched 
westwards,  President  Juarez  trailed  out  of  the  city 


THE  EMPEROR  325 

to  the  north,  taking  the  republic  in  his  waggons. 
Early  in  June  Bazaine  and  the  advance  guard  rode 
in;  and  when  General  Forey  made  his  formal  entry, 
the  Mexicans,  with  that  courtesy  which  the  Latin 
races  rarely  refuse  to  the  victor,  received  him  with 
clanging  belfries  and  a  hail  of  flowers.  The  invaders 
were  overwhelmed  in  a  cataract  of  official  compli- 
ments, and  the  traditional  superlatives  of  Spanish 
courtesy  so  far  affected  the  literal  intelligence  of 
Forey  that  he  reported  to  his  Government  that  the 
population  was  'avide  d'ordre,  de  justice,  de  liberte 
vraie/  These  laudable  cravings  were  promptly 
satisfied  (since  the  climate  was  hardly  favourable  to 
the  full  application  of  the  principles  of  1852)  with 
a  nominated  assembly  of  notables,  who  indicated  the 
dawn  of  a  new,  monarchical  day  by  voting  the  Em- 
pire and  appointing  a  Regency.  Two  hundred 
gentlemen  invited  Maximilian  to  Mexico,  and  Gen- 
eral Forey  enjoyed  the  pleasurable  emotions  of  a 
king-maker.  Paris  was  mildly  startled  by  the  news. 
Ministers  who  had  regarded  the  monarchist  intrigue 
as  an  excuse  for  a  brilliant  razzia  were  chilled  by  the 
slow  march  on  Mexico.  A  treaty  and  a  triumphant 
return  of  the  army  was  all  that  they  hoped  for;  and 
when  Forey  performed  in  1863  the  promises  of  1862, 
he  was  all  but  disavowed.  Napoleon  acquiesced 
politely  in  the  new  Empire;  his  general  was  thanked 
and  promoted  Marshal ;  but  he  was  recalled  to  France, 
and  in  his  place  Bazaine  entered  the  melancholy 
dynasty  of  the  Mexican  command. 

While  French  society  was  deriving  a  pleasant 
thrill  from  the  spectacle  of  Captain  de  Galliffet  on 
his  crutches  (his  reminiscences  of  La  Puebla  be- 
came classical)  and  Napoleon  was  presenting 


326  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Mexican  trophies  to  the  Guard  on  the  steps  of  his 
new  chalet  at  Vichy,  a  picturesque  deputation  drove 
out  from  Trieste  to  Miramar  and  offered  the  Arch- 
duke a  step  in  the  Almanack  de  Gotha.  Bazaine  was 
sweeping  the  republicans  into  the  corners  of  their 
country,  and  the  offer  had  quite  an  air  of  reality. 
Maximilian  and  his  wife  made  a  gleeful  tour  of  the 
Continent  and  collected  the  half-hearted  felicita- 
tions of  their  relatives.  At  Brussels  the  judicious 
Leopold  omitted  a  unique  opportunity  for  lugu- 
brious foresight,  and  in  Paris  Eugenie  gave  Maxi- 
milian a  medal — 'Monseigneur,  elle  vous  portera 
bonheur' — but  the  Emperor  seemed  more  concerned 
with  limiting  the  liability  of  France  than  with  the 
prospects  of  his  young  protege.  Yet  there  was  a 
definite  agreement  for  the  maintenance  of  French 
troops  in  the  country  until  1867;  and  if  the  claims  of 
France  precluded  all  possibility  that  the  Mexican 
budget  would  ever  balance,  the  new  Emperor  seemed 
almost  assured  of  a  sufficiency  of  foreign  bayonets. 
The  mysterious  transactions  which  preceded  the  dis- 
placements of  royalty  were  prolonged  into  the  spring 
of  1864.  Precise  old  gentlemen  exercised  a  wealth  of 
conveyancing  ingenuity  on  the  renunciation  of  Maxi- 
milian's rights  as  a  Hapsburg;  and  as  the  drafts  went 
backwards  and  forwards  between  Miramar  and  the 
Hofburg,  he  seemed  to  lose  interest  in  the  adventure. 
But  a  French  general  brought  him  a  curt  reminder  of 
his  pledges ;  and  his  wife,  whose  mother  had  only  been 
a  Queen,  was  wild  to  be  an  Empress.  The  Mexi- 
cans became  insistent,  and  Franz-Joseph  came  to 
Miramar  to  sign  the  final  document.  The  two  men 
parted  in  the  station  at  Trieste,  and  on  an  April 
afternoon  the  new  Emperor  sailed  in  an  Austrian 


THE  EMPEROR  327 

cruiser;  in  four  years  it  brought  him  silently  home 
again. 

His  ship  went  down  the  Adriatic  in  the  sunlight, 
and  in  the  long  summer  days  they  crossed  the 
Atlantic.  A  great  mountain  stood  up  out  of  the  sea 
behind  the  dismal  port  of  Vera  Cruz,  and  they  went 
ashore  into  the  new  Empire.  The  wind  swept  down 
the  wretched  arches  which  were  there  to  welcome 
them,  and  that  night  the  Empress  wept.  But  they 
drove  into  the  capital  in  a  clatter  of  Mexican  lancers, 
and  far  to  the  north  Juarez  and  his  republic  were 
hunted  along  the  United  States  frontier.  The  censers 
swung  in  the  great  Cathedral,  and  the  new  Empire 
was  consecrated  and  installed  with  every  recommen- 
dation to  Mexican  confidence  (including  an  obstinate 
refusal  on  the  part  of  the  United  States  to  recognise 

it). 

The  Imperial  experiment  in  Mexico,  which  diverted 
French  investors  during  the  years  1864*  and  1865, 
was  a  queer  medley.  Down  on  the  coast,  where  the 
great  zopilotes  flapped  dismally  over  Vera  Cruz,  a 
French  base  lay  in  the  heat.  The  town  was  held  by 
a  few  Egyptians  in  white  uniforms,  and  French 
drafts  hurried  nervously  through  the  fever  zone  into 
the  interior.  A  rudimentary  armoured  train  steamed 
warily  up  the  little  line  to  railhead,  and  the  winding 
roads  led  through  the  glare  to  Mexico.  In  the  capital 
a  mild-eyed  gentleman,  whose  profuse  blonde  beard 
captivated  native  opinion  and  concealed  a  deficiency 
of  chin,  discussed  a  perpetual  insolvency  with  his 
ministers  or  inspected  strange  units  of  Hungarian 
hussars  and  Belgian  legionaries.  Sometimes  he 
rambled  vaguely  through  his  sun-baked  territory. 
There  was  a  dull  blaze  of  civil  war  at  every  point  of 


328  THE.  SECOND  EMPIRE 

the  horizon;  but  Maximilian's  attention  wandered 
easily  from  politics  to  botany;  and  what  should  have 
been  an  Emperor  in  the  saddle  was  too  often  an  in- 
telligent tourist.  He  even  ordered  nightingales  from 
Styria  to  moderate  to  his  Austrian  ear  the  song  of 
Mexican  birds.  Yet  his  part  in  the  queer  piece  was 
faintly  supernumerary.  Cast  to  play  Emperor  of 
Mexico,  he  could  hardly  put  his  name  to  a  decree 
without  French  money  to  finance  the  policy  and 
French  bayonets  to  enforce  the  signature.  The 
extent  of  his  authority  coincided  exactly  with  the  area 
covered  by  the  French  flying  columns;  and  the  real 
master  of  the  new  Empire,  who  could  win  or  lose  it 
a  province  by  the  movements  of  his  troops,  was  a 
heavy-eyed,  burly  man  with  a  good  Spanish  accent 
who  lumbered  into  the  palace  in  a  French  Marshal's 
uniform  and  took  from  Mexico  to  Metz  the  name  of 
Bazaine.  In  the  streets  of  the  capital  staff  officers 
rode  up  and  down,  and  hands  went  smartly  up  to 
French  kepis  as  the  carriages  went  by  behind  the 
jingling  mules  and  Mexican  brunettes  bowed  to  their 
visitors  on  their  evening  drive.  There  was  an  odd 
little  world  of  Parisians  in  exile  who  mitigated  their 
transportation  with  an  intermittent  opera  season, 
whilst  the  faint  sounds  of  civil  war  floated  down 
to  the  capital  from  the  north. 

Juarez  and  his  phantom  republic  flitted  along  the 
frontier,  and  an  interminable  war  of  guerrillas  and 
flying  columns  trailed  on.  French  opinion  was  in- 
sufficiently nourished  upon  an  enervating  diet  of  vic- 
tories without  finality  and  casualties  without  results, 
and  gradually  the  glamour  of  the  Mexican  adventure 
began  to  fade.  Its  finance,  which  had  opened  with 
high  promises  and  low  interest,  declined  upon  the 


THE  EMPEROR  329 

vulgar  stimulant  of  lottery  bonds;  and  in  the  Cham- 
ber a  Mexican  debate  became  a  dismal  exercise  in 
which  M.  Rouher  displayed  an  unconvincing  elo- 
quence and  sardonic  republicans  made  Mexico  a 
symbol  of  Imperial  failure.  The  enterprise  had  the 
distasteful  air  of  an  expedition  to  stifle  a  republic; 
if  Juarez  lacked  the  principles  of  the  Gracchi,  he 
was  at  least  capable  of  the  mobility  of  de  Wet;  and 
even  official  members  began  to  listen  sceptically  when 
ministers  asked  for  further  votes  of  credit.  There 
was  a  new  temper  of  economy  in  France,  and  even 
at  the  Tuileries  the  call  of  distant  adventures  was 
growing  fainter.  Fresh  problems  were  forming  in 
the  mists  of  Central  Europe,  and  the  Rhine  was 
nearer  to  Paris  than  the  Rio  Grande.  This  tendency, 
which  became  marked  towards  the  end  of  1865,  was 
accelerated  by  the  new  tone  of  the  United  States. 
The  Civil  War  had  flickered  out,  and  the  French 
had  concealed  their  preference  for  the  South  behind 
the  decencies  of  international  law.  But  the  incidents 
of  a  long  neutrality  had  put  a  manifest  strain  upon 
American  affections.  The  Emperor  had  permitted 
his  shadow  to  fall  across  the  American  continent,  and 
the  violation  of  that  republican  sanctuary  by  a  for- 
eign monarch  scandalised  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  suc- 
cessor. The  presence  of  a  Hapsburg  across  the 
Mexican  border  was  distasteful  to  the  vicar  of 
George  Washington  upon  earth,  and  the  tone  of 
American  diplomacy  became  audibly  sharper.  The 
war  sputtered  along  the  Rio  Bravo  del  Norte;  and 
as  the  gunfire  rolled  round  Matamoros,  the  knowledge 
which  American  citizens  had  so  recently  gained  of 
the  subtleties  of  neutrality  was  exploited  in  favor  of 
Mexican  rebels,  and  Brownsville,  Texas,  took  an 


330  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

obliging  hand  in  the  republican  game.  There  was  a 
curt  refusal  to  recognise  Maximilian,  and  a  repre- 
sentative was  even  appointed  by  the  State  Depart- 
ment to  follow  the  peripatetic  government  of  Juarez. 
Napoleon  lost  interest  in  the  argument:  he  valued 
American  goodwill,  and  he  valued  more  highly  still 
the  army  which  was  scattered  across  Mexico.  Early 
in  1866  France  and  the  world  were  informed  that 
French  troops  would  be  withdrawn,  and  the  Mexican 
adventure  dropped  sharply  to  the  haunting  minor 
of  its  last  movement. 

The  news  came  to  Mexico  in  the  summer  heat,  and 
Maximilian  knew  that  his  Empire  had  begun  to  fade. 
There  was  no  money  and  no  loyalty,  and  soon  there 
would  be  no  troops.  His  Empress  flung  bravely  out 
of  the  country  in  a  last  effort  to  persuade  the  world 
that  Maximilian  was  betrayed.  The  crowds  were 
silent  at  Vera  Cruz  as  she  drove  down,  a  little  wild- 
eyed,  to  the  quay;  and  she  spoke  little  on  the  long 
voyage  home.  At  Paris  (their  trouble  had  come 
from  Paris,  and  she  brought  it  back)  they  had  sent 
no  one  to  receive  her  at  the  station.  The  carriages 
were  waiting  somewhere  else,  and  she  drove  off 
miserably  in  a  cab  to  a  vast  new  hotel.  Eugenie 
called,  and  the  visit  left  her  shaken  and  wretched. 
For  a  day  she  waited  for  the  summons  to  the 
Emperor,  and  then  she  drove  to  St.  Cloud  on  an 
August  afternoon.  The  Emperor  was  ill,  but  he 
saw  her;  and  for  two  cruel  hours  she  begged  him  to 
support  her  husband.  It  was,  as  Bazaine  had  called 
it,  une  agonie  dans  I' impossible,  and  the  pale  man 
with  the  large  moustache  would  not,  could  not  help 
her.  When  they  brought  her  some  naranjada,  she 
looked  oddly  at  the  glass;  and  when  she  fainted  and 


THE  EMPEROR  331 

Eugenie  gave  her  water,  she  shrieked  out  in  mad 
woman's  fear  of  poison.  There  was  a  dreadful  drive 
back  to  Paris,  and  she  trailed  off  unhappily  across 
the  Continent  to  see  the  Pope.  At  every  hour,  in 
every  face  murderers  from  Mexico  flitted  before  her, 
and  in  the  Vatican  she  raved  out  her  wretched  fear. 
The  old  Pope  watched  her  with  sad  eyes.  A  Cardinal 
fetched  a  doctor,  and  that  night  two  women  slept  in 
the  Vatican.  It  was  a  dreadful  end  to  her  little 
reign ;  but  it  was  kinder  than  the  news  from  Mexico. 
The  Empire  was  crumbling  as  the  French  marched 
down  to  the  sea,  and  Bazaine  presided  gloomily  over 
its  disintegration.  The  new  American  cable  brought 
to  Maximilian  the  ghastly  news  from  Europe;  and 
he  wandered  vaguely  from  town  to  town,  wavering 
between  abdication  and  the  hopeless  gesture  of  resist- 
ance. His  luggage  was  sent  to  the  coast ;  but  a  crowd 
had  cheered  his  name  in  Vienna,  Franz-Joseph 
would  hardly  welcome  his  return,  and  his  mother 
wrote  that  his  position  at  home  would  be  question- 
able. The  French  bugles  died  away  down  the  long 
road  to  Vera  Cruz,  and  early  in  1867  he  was  left  alone 
with  Mexico.  The  republican  tide  crept  slowly  back 
over  the  country,  and  he  went  out  of  the  city  by  the 
north  road  to  Queretaro  with  fifteen  hundred  men. 
There  was  a  hopeless  siege  and  a  surrender,  and  the 
republicans  rode  in.  Maximilian  was  a  prisoner,  and 
nervous  diplomats  fluttered  round  the  new  govern- 
ment. A  good  deal  was  said  about  mercy  and  the 
importance  of  the  ex-Emperor's  relations  in  Europe, 
and  considerable  eloquence  was  displayed  by  two 
members  of  the  Mexican  Bar.  But  there  was  no 
change  on  the  impassive,  Indian  face  of  Juarez:  the 
republic  had  come  back  out  of  the  north,  and  mercy 


332  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

was  a  new  notion  in  Mexican  politics.  There  was  a 
court-martial  before  the  glaring  drop-scene  of  a  pro- 
vincial theatre,  and  a  firing  party;  and  as  the  smoke 
of  an  irregular  volley  drifted  across  Queretaro,  the 
Mexican  adventure  ended.  It  was  a  morning  of 
bright  sunshine,  and  the  cracked  bells  were  tolling. 

Maximilian  was  dead;  Charlotte  was  mad;  Morny 
was  dead;  Jecker  dragged  on  until  the  Commune 
shot  him;  the  French  dead  lay  in  their  graves;  and 
to  Napoleon  the  sudden  fall  of  an  Empire  in  Mexico 
must  have  come  with  the  vague  menace  of  lightning 
below  the  horizon. 


XIV 

THE  note  of  the  later  Empire  (and  in  1863  it  began 
to  swing  slowly  into  the  last  phase)  was  uncertainty. 
New  questions  seemed  to  crowd  upon  it  to  which  the 
simple  catchwords  of  the  coup  d'etat  provided  no 
answer.  The  Emperor  was  an  aging  man;  the  long 
moustache  began  to  droop,  and  the  hair  hung 
raggedly  above  his  ears.  The  mild  manner  was 
becoming  touched  with  hesitancy,  and  when  public 
business  forced  him  to  decisions,  he  fumbled  a  little 
with  the  problems  of  French  policy.  The  slow  drift 
of  the  Empire  seemed  to  be  floating  him  into  a  new 
world,  among  strange  faces.  But  M.  Merimee,  who 
had  an  eye  for  character,  could  see  the  truth:  'Le 
maitre  ricdme  pas  les  visages  nouveauac*  The  old 
personnel  was  hastily  adapted  to  the  new  problems; 
an  old  minister  (it  was  the  secret  of  Napoleon's 
failure  to  reconcile  the  Empire  with  democracy)  was 
instructed  to  strike  a  new  attitude;  and  his  sovereign 
returned  with  obvious  relief  to  the  less  exacting  com- 
panionship of  Julius  Caesar. 

The  elections  of  1863  confronted  the  Empire  with 
the  problem  of  a  Parliament.  Napoleon  was  dis- 
inclined as  yet  to  become  a  parliamentary  monarch 
of  the  English  type.  But  although  his  ministers 
continued  to  govern  France  without  condescending 
to  explain  themselves  in  the  Chamber,  its  existence 
was  recognised  by  the  appointment  of  a  Ministre 


334  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

d'fitat  whose  functions,  since  he  predominated  in 
Council  and  spoke  for  the  Government  in  the  House, 
approximated  to  the  duties  of  a  Prime  Minister.  The 
first  nominee  was  M.  Billault,  whose  talent  for  exposi- 
tion had  even  found  reasons  for  the  earlier  phases  of 
French  policy  in  Mexico — 'Pas  un  homme  d'fitat'  in 
M.  Merimee's  judgment,  fmais  .  .  .  un  instrument 
merveilleux  entre  les  mains  d'un  homme  d'fitat.'  But 
he  died  before  the  Chamber  met,  and  with  the  nomina- 
tion of  his  successor  the  broad  shadow  of  M.  Rouher 
fell  across  the  Second  Empire.  To  the  end  of  that 
long  career  ( and  before  it  was  over,  the  Empire  itself 
had  ended )  he  remained,  as  he  had  begun,  a  successful 
lawyer  with  a  professional  aptitude  for  detail  and  a 
forensic  profusion  of  second-rate  reasoning.  Never 
at  a  loss  for  an  argument  and  untroubled  by  the 
doubts  which  oppress  finer,  if  less  professional,  in- 
telligences, his  burly  figure  dominated  the  Chamber, 
and  in  the  steady  boom  of  his  uninspired,  his  in- 
exhaustible eloquence  the  later  Empire  had  found 
its  accompaniment. 

The  session  opened  in  a  mood  of  mild  Liberalism. 
Imperial  policy  seemed  to  be  passing  into  a  tone  of 
English  sobriety  and  M.  Fould  was  effecting  Glad- 
stonian  economies  at  the  Ministry  of  Finance; 
indirect  communications  were  even  opened  with 
Hawarden  through  M.  Merimee,  who  got  his  clothes 
at  Poole's,  and  Mr.  Panizzi,  who  got  his  ideas  from 
Paris.  M.  Thiers,  a  pontifical  little  figure  with 
gleaming  spectacles  and  a  wintry  smile,  enlightened 
his  countrymen  in  speeches  of  enormous  length  upon 
the  march  of  progress;  there  were  understood  to  be 
five  'libertes  necessaires' — of  the  individual,  the  press, 
the  vote,  the  Deputy,  and  the  Chamber.  But  the 


THE  EMPEROR  335 

real  movement  of  the  Empire  towards  constitutional- 
ism was  determined  less  obtrusively.  M.  de  Morny 
continued  his  discreet  conversations  with  M.  Ollivier. 
Claiming  credit  for  the  dismissal  of  Persigny,  who 
had  become  a  retired  Duke  and  a  grotesque  incar- 
nation of  reaction,  he  bluntly  requested  his  young 
friend  to  collaborate  'pour  organiser  la  liberte'  and 
as  an  evidence  of  his  good  faith  he  put  M.  Ollivier 
in  charge  of  a  Government  measure  which  legalised 
trade  unions  and  conferred  upon  an  ungrateful  pro- 
letariat the  right  to  strike.  The  result  upon  M.  Olli- 
vier's  relations  with  his  republican  colleagues  was 
immediate:  suspicions  were  aroused,  he  parted  from 
M.  Jules  Favre  after  one  of  those  public  quarrels 
which  enliven  French  parliamentary  life,  and  through 
the  year  1864  he  drifted  steadily  into  the  orbit  of 
Morny.  Republican  pedantry  was  distasteful  to  a 
practical  intelligence,  and  if  the  Empire  could  be 
reconstructed  upon  Liberal  lines,  M.  Ollivier  was 
prepared  to  take  a  hand  in  the  work.  But  it  did 
not  begin.  Quite  suddenly,  early  in  1865,  M.  de 
Morny  passed  out  of  politics;  and  when  the  experi- 
ment was  tried,  it  came  too  late. 

The  Duke  (they  were  all  dukes  now)  was  not  well. 
A  few  nights  earlier  he  had  been  in  his  box  for  the 
premiere  of  M.  Offenbach's  Belle  Helene;  M.  Roche- 
fort  was  in  the  house  that  evening,  and  his  face  (he 
wrote  impertinences  in  the  Figaro]  haunted  Morny  a 
little.  Doctor  Oliffe  was  beginning  to  look  anxious, 
and  there  was  a  consultation.  His  lady  was  seen  at 
a  ball;  but  he  had  forced  her  to  go,  and  in  his  neat, 
curt  way  he  prepared  for  his  'depart.3  They  burned 
his  papers  in  the  room,  as  he  lay  back  and  watched 
them;  Flahaut,  his  father,  came  to  take  his  hand; 


336  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

and  on  a  winter  evening  the  footmen  were  lined  up 
in  the  great  hall,  as  a  carriage  drove  up  from  the 
Tuileries  and  two  figures  went  up  the  broad  staircase. 
fLa  jemme  montait  droite  et  fiere,  envelop  pee  de  ses 
noire s  mantilles  d'espagnole;  I'homme  se  tenait  a  la 
rampe,  plus  lent  et  fatigue,  le  collet  de  son  pardessus 
clair  remontant  sur  un  dos  un  pen  voute  qu'agitait  un 
sanglot  convulsif/  The  brothers  parted;  and  in  the 
parting  Napoleon  lost  his  shrewdest  man.  On  a  cold 
March  day  (there  was  a  little  sunshine  as  they  left 
the  Madeleine)  the  long  line  of  bayonets  went  up 
the  road  to  Pere  Lachaise,  as  the  Empire  wore 
mourning  for  Morny;  but  almost  it  might  have  worn 
it  for  itself. 

A  little  wearily  the  Emperor  went  back  to  his 
papers,  and  the  movement  towards  a  Liberal  Empire 
was  sharply  checked.  Morny  was  no  longer  there  to 
introduce  M.  Ollivier,  and  Prince  Napoleon  was  an 
inadequate  advocate  of  progress.  His  manners  had 
never  been  good;  his  political  activity  was  normally 
confined  to  resignations ;  he  had  the  air  of  an  figalite 
presumptive,  and  when  he  startled  an  audience  at 
Ajaccio  with  a  radical  speech,  the  Emperor  disavowed 
him  and  M.  Rouher  was  left  in  charge  of  his  grateful 
countrymen.  One  could  leave  so  much  to  M.  Rouher ; 
he  found  reasons  for  everything,  and  if  he  hardly 
directed  the  Empire  towards  progress,  it  was  for  the 
sufficient  reason  that  there  were  so  few  precedents 
for  progress.  If  he  were  ever  guilty  (and  few  law- 
yers are)  of  political  generalisation,  he  was  probably 
of  the  opinion  expressed  by  King  Louis  Philippe  to 
a  young  inquirer:  'Soyez  sans  inquietude,  jeune 
homme;  la  France  est  un  pays  qu'on  mene  avec  des 
fonctionnaires  publics/  At  any  rate  he  left  his  mas- 


3raun  &  Cie 


The  Emperor  and  the  Prince  Imperial 
From  a  photograph 


THE  EMPEROR  337 

ter  to  himself ;  and  in  the  days  when  the  polite  world 
was  thrilled  by  Gounod's  Mass  and  M.  Theophile 
Gautier  was  seen  at  the  Salon,  'a  "shocking  bad  hat" 
attached  to  the  back  of  his  huge  head  by  some  process 
of  adhesion  known  to  himself  alone,  masses  of  dis- 
hevelled hair  hanging  anywhere  but  in  the  right  place, 
and  catalogue  in  hand,  making  and  destroying  repu- 
tations by  the  glance  of  his  eye  or  the  stroke  of  his 
pen,'  Napoleon  escaped  from  the  tedium  of  admin- 
istration into  the  more  distinguished  leisure  of  a 
historian.  Early  in  1865  his  subjects  were  rejoiced 
by  the  appearance  of  the  first  volume  of  his  Vie  de 
Cesar.  Its  loyal  readers  were  presented  with  a  doc- 
trine of  Caesarism  which  took  a  slightly  Messianic 
tinge  and  hinted  at  the  resemblance  (which  had 
escaped  earlier  writers)  between  the  murder  in  the 
Senate  House  and  the  darker  crimes  of  St.  Helena 
and  Calvary.  Taking  a  longish  run  before  delivering 
his  actual  theme,  he  began  his  story  with  the  founda- 
tion of  Rome  and,  noting  the  significant  succession 
of  a  monarchy,  a  republic  and  an  Empire,  travelled 
sedately  towards  Caesar  through  regions  hallowed 
by  the  measured  tread  of  Niebuhr  and  Dr.  Arnold. 
The  margins  displayed  a  creditable  profusion  of 
erudite  notes,  and  the  text  contained  a  reputable 
range  of  historical  analogy,  although  the  learned 
author  was  precluded  by  the  exigencies  of  his  foreign 
policy  from  developing  the  comparison  (so  dear  to 
Continental  scholars)  of  Carthage  to  Great  Britain. 
Caesar,  when  he  appeared,  had  a  faintly  Napoleonic 
manner;  something  of  a  litterateur  and  more  of  a 
fatalist,  he  was  familiar  with  the  principles  of  the 
coup  d'etat  and  had  almost  assimilated  the  doctrine 
of  nationality.  The  author's  views  were  visible 


338  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

beneath  the  scholarship  of  his  collaborators.  The 
portrait  of  the  artist  was  excellent;  but  it  was  less 
easy  to  reconcile  it  with  the  hard  features  of  Julius 
Caesar.  .  The  Parisians  of  1865  were  less  critical; 
there  was  something  mildly  entertaining  in  their 
master's  erudite  diversions,  and  one  could  make  little 
jokes  about  Madame  Cesar.  MM.  Emile  Augier, 
Octave  Feuillet,  and  Jules  Sandeau  were  honoured 
with  presentation  copies,  and  the  straining  limits  of 
the  French  language  barely  sufficed  to  contain  their 
transports.  Madame  George  Sand  scandalised  her 
republican  friends  with  the  revelation  that,  as  litera- 
ture, it  was  faultless,  and  only  consoled  them  with 
the  prediction  that  it  would  not  sell;  whilst  from 
beyond  the  Rhine  came  the  solemn  reverberations  of 
academic  courtesy,  as  Professor  Ritschl  and  his 
friends  expressed  their  gratitude  above  signatures 
that  are  more  familiar  among  the  staccato  objurga- 
tions of  controversial  footnotes.  Archaeology  even 
filtered  as  far  as  the  great  house-party  at  Compiegne, 
where  the  autumn  charade  (M.  Viollet-le-Duc  was 
generally  so  clever  about  the  tableaux  vivants,  but 
this  year  M.  de  Massa  had  written  a  whole  revue)  was 
called  Les  Commentaires  de  Cesar  and  Madame  de 
Metternich  sang  a  song  about  the  cab  strike  and  the 
Prince  Imperial,  as  I'Avenir,  appeared  as  a  Grenadier 
of  the  Guard.  A  second  volume  followed  early  in 
1866,  in  which  the  awkward  question  of  assassination 
was  tactfully  eluded  by  interrupting  the  narrative  at 
the  crossing  of  the  Rubicon.  The  word  had  strange 
memories  for  Napoleon,  and  his  Caesar  was  provoked 
to  civil  war  in  circumstances  which  bore  a  startling 
resemblance  to  the  December  days  of  1851,  when  a 
Prince-President  wrote  Rubicon  upon  a  file  of 


THE  EMPEROR  339 

papers  and  handed  them  to  his  friends  at  the  ISlysee. 
Caesar's  campaigns  in  Gaul  were  patiently  narrated, 
and  the  footnotes  contained  copious  evidence  of  the 
official  taste  for  archaeology  which  had  set  exasper- 
ated Engineer  officers  digging  in  tumuli  and  sent 
Baron  Stoffel  of  the  Artillery,  who  was  so  soon  to 
have  another,  a  more  immediate  mission  beyond  the 
Rhine,  on  little  errands  of  research  round  France  in 
quest  of  Caesar's  camps.  The  book  compelled  the 
blushing  admiration  of  Professor  Zumpt,  and  even 
Mommsen  complimented  the  Emperor  on  his  scholar- 
ship. All  Germany,  the  international,  scholarly 
Germany  of  1866  whose  arid  ingenuity  lies  embalmed 
in  the  apparatus  criticus  of  every  classic,  poured  its 
gratitude  into  the  Tuileries  letter-bag,  and  from  the 
Emperor's  correspondence  it  almost  seemed  as 
though  Europe  from  the  Rhine  to  the  Russian 
frontier  was  populated  by  an  inpecunious  race  of 
scholars  animated  by  a  single  ambition  to  possess 
(without  paying  for  it)  a  copy  of  his  book:  a  com- 
poser even  asked  leave  to  dedicate  a  Julius  Caesar 
march. 

By  the  mild  light  of  the  later  Empire  Napoleon 
sat  writing  in  his  study.  M.  Emile  Ollivier  was 
struggling  with  his  conscience,  and  M.  Rouher  was 
drowning  democracy  with  the  measured  enunciation 
of  the  obvious.  But  as  they  looked  up,  a  long  shadow 
fell  across  the  European  scene  and  Prussia  came 
slowly  from  the  corner  of  the  stage.  Un  formidable 
realiste  avail  frappe  les  trois  coups.  His  name  was 
Otto  Eduard  Leopold  von  Bismarck-Schonhausen. 


XV 


THE  appearances  of  Prussia  in  history  have  some- 
thing of  the  suddenness,  if  not  all  the  agility,  of  the 
bad  fairy.  The  polite  pantomime  of  the  Eighteenth 
Century  had  been  sharply  interrupted  in  1740  as 
King  Frederick  the  Great  emerged  from  the  trap- 
door and  crouched  for  his  spring  on  Silesia.  The 
Prussian  effort  after  Jena,  which  confronted  Napo- 
leon in  seven  years  with  an  unbroken  front  of  Ger- 
man resistance,  was  a  performance  of  astounding 
rapidity.  And  there  was  something  of  the  same  quality 
in  the  sudden  emergence  of  Prussia  which  filled  the 
years  between  1864  and  the  end  of  the  Second 
Empire. 

Prussia  in  1850,  with  a  king  whose  exuberant  elo- 
quence has  been  variously  interpreted  as  a  symptom 
of  Romanticism,  dementia,  alcoholism,  and  the 
Hohenzollern  manner,  was  a  secondary  state.  It 
had  an  unaccountable  legacy  of  military  achievement ; 
but  Bliicher  and  Ziethen  had  faded  into  history,  and 
Rossbach  and  Ligny  seemed  almost  as  distant  from 
contemporary  Prussia  as  the  broad  sweep  of  the 
operations  of  Gustavus  Adolphus  from  the  mild 
activities  of  Swedish  policy.  Its  interests  were  dissi- 
pated by  a  frontier  of  eccentric  conformation,  and 
the  motives  of  Prussian  policy  seemed  mostly  to  be 
found  in  the  will  of  Austria.  It  was  a  dismal  fate 
for  the  heirs  of  a  great  tradition.  Old  gentlemen  in 

840 


THE  EMPEROR  341 

lecture-rooms  flavoured  their  scholarship  with  poli- 
tics, and  a  strong  tide  of  patriotism  began  to  set  from 
the  universities.  But  the  world  of  1850  seemed 
determined  to  exist  without  assistance  from  Prussia. 
Even  in  Germany  it  stood  for  nothing.  There  had 
been  a  flicker  of  nationalism  in  1848,  which  set  Prince 
Hohenlohe  complaining  that  a  man  'could  not  say 
abroad  "I  am  a  German,"  could  not  pride  himself 
that  the  German  flag  was  flying  from  his  vessel, 
could  have  no  German  consul  in  time  of  need,  but 
had  to  explain  "I  am  a  Hessian,  a  Darmstadter,  a 
Buckebiirger :  my  Fatherland  was  once  a  great  and 
powerful  country,  now  it  is  shattered  into  eight  and 
thirty  splinters."  But  Prussia  had  not  yet  mastered 
the  German  idea.  Nationalism  got  involved  some- 
how with  democracy,  a  Parisian  import  which  (out- 
side South  Germany)  was  regarded  with  grave 
suspicion,  and  Prussia  settled  down  once  more  to 
rotate  demurely  in  the  orbit  of  Vienna. 

Gradually,  as  Europe  drifted  under  the  control  of 
Napoleon  III.,  a  change  came.  Discreet  encourage- 
ments of  Prussia  were  wafted  from  Paris  to  Berlin, 
as  the  Emperor,  who  based  French  policy  upon  his 
maritime  alliance  with  Great  Britain,  felt  gently  for 
an  ally  on  the  Continent.  There  was  a  show  of 
independence  in  some  fiscal  negotiations  with  Vienna ; 
and  when  Austria  began  to  waver  towards  the  Allies 
in  the  Crimean  War,  a  drinking  squire  in  the 
Prussian  diplomatic  service  (the  name  was  von  Bis- 
marck and  the  drink  was  champagne  and  beer) 
manipulated  the  minor  German  states,  controlled  the 
Diet,  and  checked  the  drift  of  Austria  by  the  in- 
sistence of  Prussia  upon  strict  neutrality.  His 
design,  since  his  imagination  was  obsessed  by  the 


342  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

crushing  war  on  two  fronts  which  had  broken  Fred- 
erick in  the  Seven  Years'  War,  was  to  rest  Prussian 
policy  upon  a  firm  alliance  with  Russia;  and  for  the 
first  time  in  1855  he  earned  for  his  government  the 
gratitude  of  St.  Petersburg.  Berlin  was  slowly 
mounting  in  the  scale,  and  Germany  passed  under 
the  joint  control  of  Austria  and  Prussia.  When  the 
march  of  the  French  across  North  Italy  alarmed 
German  patriots  in  1859,  Prussia  caught  and  led  the 
national  drift;  Prussian  troop-movements  on  the 
Rhine  checked  Napoleon  after  Solferino,  and  Prus- 
sian policy  forced  him  into  peace.  For  the  first  time 
Prussia  had  stood  for  Germany.  Von  Moltke  and 
von  Roon  were  taking  their  places  among  the  soldiers. 
But  von  Bismarck  was  playing  with  his  bear-cubs  in 
the  embassy  at  St.  Petersburg;  his  master  governed 
Prussia  with  the  precarious  authority  of  a  Regent; 
and  for  a  few  years  longer  Prussian  policy  lingered 
on  in  incoherence.  Then,  when  a  new  King  brought 
in  a  new  minister,  Bismarck  became  Prussia;  and  in 
eight  years  Prussia  had  become  Germany. 

In  the  first  movement  he  put  his  own  house  in 
marching  order.  Berlin  in  1862  contained  a  Parlia- 
ment which  (such  was  the  perilous  infection  of  the 
age)  was  in  violent  conflict  with  its  King.  His 
wishes  had  been  scandalously  disregarded  by  the 
electors;  and  since  they  related  to  a  vital,  almost  a 
sacred  (since  it  was  a  military)  matter,  he  persisted 
in  them.  The  mobilisation  of  1859,  which  had 
checked  the  French  on  the  Adige  and  made  the  Peace 
of  Villafranca,  was  an  imperfect  operation;  it  had 
revealed  the  weakness  of  the  Prussian  army,  and  the 
King  and  his  military  advisers  resolved  upon  a 
drastic  reorganisation  of  the  forces.  Military  reform 


THE  EMPEROR  343 

is  the  most  costly  of  all  government  activities,  and 
the  bourgeois  parliamentarians  of  Berlin  had  no 
enthusiasm  for  the  high  taxes  which  denote  military 
efficiency  or  for  the  discomforts  which  accompany 
military  service.  The  resulting  conflict  aligned 
against  King  William  almost  the  whole  civilian 
population  of  Prussia,  and  it  became  the  congenial 
business  of  Bismarck  to  restore  to  Prussian  politics 
the  enviable  simplicity  of  the  drill-ground.  A  Junker 
training  had  impressed  him  with  the  sanctity  of  royal 
wishes,  and  he  was  coldly  determined  that  Prussia 
should  have  its  army.  The  battalions  which  his 
master  regarded  with  simple  piety  as  the  instruments 
(if  adequately  armed)  of  the  Most  High  were  in 
Bismarck's  view  the  last  and  most  useful  branch  of 
the  Foreign  Office.  War  was  a  form  of  policy,  and 
without  an  army  (since  Prussia  had  not  the  pre- 
posterous prestige  which  enabled  Lord  Palmerston 
to  dictate  to  Europe  with  a  peace  establishment  of 
100,000  men)  Bismarck  would  find  himself  reduced 
to  the  futility  of  Alberoni  or  the  expedients  of 
Cavour.  It  was  a  good  cause;  and  as  he  defied  his 
Parliament  in  attitudes  which  owed  something  to 
Straff ord,  he  exercised  to  the  full  his  native  gifts  of 
insolence. 

But  the  affairs  of  Europe  found  more  useful  em- 
ployment for  him.  Beyond  the  frontier  Russia  was 
at  grips  with  a  Polish  insurrection,  and  French  policy 
precipitated  St.  Petersburg  into  the  waiting  embraces 
of  Berlin.  In  the  years  which  followed  the  Crimean 
War  Napoleon  had  sedulously  cultivated  Prince 
Gortschakoff  and  his  Czar.  But  at  the  faint,  far  call 
of  Polish  nationalism  he  seemed  to  sacrifice  French 
interests  to  modern  principles.  The  Russian  alliance, 


344  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

upon  which  his  uncle  had  built  a  new  Europe,  was 
almost  in  his  grasp.  Sebastopol  was  half  forgotten, 
and  the  two  Emperors  seemed  to  control  Europe 
from  either  end.  But  somewhere  in  the  mists  of 
the  Vistula  a  nation  was  struggling  to  be  free,  and 
Napoleon  forgot  all  his  statecraft  in  his  theories. 
He  was  the  man  of  his  age;  he  could  never  forget 
(had  he  not  made  Italy?)  that  it  was  the  age  of 
nationalities:  'I  think  on  Poland  as  I  thought  in 
1831.'  He  pestered  the  Russians  with  Notes,  pro- 
tests, circulars,  and  special  missions,  as  they  entered 
with  gusto  upon  the  congenial  business  of  repression. 
But  humanity  was  an  injudicious  guide  in  1863  (and 
possibly  at  even  later  dates)  for  foreign  policy,  and 
the  Emperor's  initiative  chilled  Russian  friendship 
and  gave  to  Bismarck  his  first  opportunity.  Whilst 
France  pullulated  with  generous  emotions  and  Brit- 
ish statesmen  dispensed  those  heartening  phrases 
which  they  so  rarely  supported  with  British  troops, 
the  Prussian  frontier  was  closed  to  Polish  rebels. 
Bismarck  abstained,  since  the  master  of  Posen  could 
sympathise  with  the  master  of  Warsaw,  from  the 
despatch  of  humanitarian  essays  to  St.  Petersburg, 
and  there  was  a  helpful  cordon  of  Prussian  frontier- 
guards  on  the  Polish  border.  His  calculated  kind- 
ness had  its  reward:  when  Bismarck  performed  a 
service,  he  made  a  friend.  Napoleon,  with  a  less 
certain  touch,  had  failed  to  grasp  his  allies.  He 
had  shared  a  war  with  England;  but  his  friends  in 
London  were  startled  by  the  doctrinaire  flavour  of 
his  policy  and  the  aimless  construction  of  armoured 
warships,  the  futile  gesture  of  the  fortification  of 
Cherbourg.  He  had  befriended  Russia  after  the 
Crimea;  but  Gortschakoff  was  chilled  by  the  Polish 


THE  EMPEROR  345 

aberration.  He  had  cheated  Italy;  but  the  annexa- 
tion of  Savoy  cost  him  half  the  credit  of  Magenta; 
and  gradually,  as  the  French  sentries  stood  before 
the  Vatican,  he  let  the  bright  waters  of  Italian  grati- 
tude stray  and  vanish  in  the  sands  of  the  Roman 
question.  Bismarck  was  less  impulsive  in  his  bene- 
factions, less  interested,  perhaps,  in  the  goodness  of 
the  deed  than  in  the  richness  of  the  reward.  But  in 
1863  he  had  served  Russia  well;  and  until  he  left 
office  a  generation  later  in  a  changed  world  (and 
he,  more  than  any  other  man,  had  changed  it)  Prussia 
knew  no  fear  for  the  long  line  of  her  eastern  frontier, 
and  leaving  Russia  in  grateful  inactivity  behind  her, 
turned  westwards  upon  Europe  a  bright,  acquisitive 
gaze.  Late  in  the  year  it  encountered  a  vague, 
familiar  outline,  as  a  king  died  in  Denmark  and  be- 
queathed to  Europe  the  tangled  inheritance  of  the 
Elbe  Duchies. 

The  problem  of  Schleswig-Holstein,  which  pro- 
voked a  volume  of  state-papers  almost  equal  to  the 
area  of  the  Duchies,  had  whitened  the  hair  of  diplo- 
mats for  fifteen  years.  Its  complexities,  which  could 
have  been  handled  by  any  competent  solicitor,  were 
publicly  referred  to  in  tones  of  amused  awe.  Prince 
Albert  was  believed  to  have  taken  a  thorough  knowl- 
edge of  it  to  his  grave  at  Frogmore;  and  Lord 
Palmerston,  although  still  capable  of  a  stirring 
speech  on  it,  had  forgotten  the  point.  But  its  ele- 
ments were  strangely  simple.  Two  Duchies  lay 
between  North  Germany  and  the  Danish  frontier. 
The  King  of  Denmark  held  them  as  Duke  by  a 
cession  of  1460,  and  in  moments  of  Danish  patriotism 
there  was  always  an  effort  to  absorb  the  Duchies  in 
the  Danish  kingdom.  German  opinion  was  equally 


346  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

interested,  since  ethnology  came  into  fashion,  in  their 
fate;  and  German  nationalism  was  usually  expressed 
in  an  effort  to  resume  for  Germany  the  lost  Duchies. 
In  1848,  when  tempers  mounted  in  both  countries, 
there  was  a  clash  of  these  conflicting  tendencies.  A 
pretender  seized  the  Duchies  in  the  German  interest ; 
the  Danes  contested  the  decision;  and  in  a  queer, 
half-hearted  war,  which  swayed  obscurely  up  and 
down  the  peninsula  for  three  years,  Prussians 
and  Saxons  and  Holsteiners  with  Prussian  officers 
struggled  in  forgotten  battles  with  the  Danes  for  the 
disputed  lands.  But  Europe  intervened;  there  was 
a  conference  in  London,  and  in  1852  the  Treaty  of 
London  restored  the  Duchies  to  the  Danish  crown. 
The  pretender  sold  his  claims  for  a  generous  remit- 
tance of  rixdalers,  and  under  the  clearing  sky  Den- 
mark re-entered  upon  its  possession.  But  German 
patriots,  'painfully  conscious,'  as  Mr.  Disraeli  con- 
descendingly observed,  'that  they  do  not  exercise  that 
influence  in  Europe  which  they  believe  is  due  to  the 
merits,  moral,  intellectual,  and  physical,  of  forty  mil- 
lions of  population,  homogeneous  and  speaking  the 
same  language,'  were  still  muttering  about  Holstein ; 
and  when  the  Danish  king  with  obvious  good  sense 
(since  Schleswig  was  predominantly  Danish  in  pop- 
ulation and  Holstein  predominantly  German)  in- 
corporated Schleswig  in  his  kingdom  of  Denmark 
and  granted  local  self-government  to  his  duchy  of 
Holstein,  German  opinion  grew  shrill  in  its  resent- 
ment of  this  scandalous  partition  of  the  Duchies.  It 
was  indelicate,  it  was  quite  unpardonably  crude,  in 
the  government  of  Copenhagen  to  solve  a  cherished 
European  problem  by  a  sudden  application  of  com- 
mon-sense; worse  still,  it  ignored  a  treaty  of  1460, 


THE  EMPEROR  347 

and  the  reckless  Danes  were  recalled  from  reality  to 
politics  by  a  curt  demand  of  the  German  Diet  that 
their  new  constitution  should  be  withdrawn.  There 
was  a  mild  flutter  in  Europe,  and  even  England 
caught  the  infection  of  excitement.  It  was  barely 
four  months  since  the  Prince  of  Wales  had  taken  a 
Danish  wife  and  Mr.  Tennyson,  the  Laureate,  had 
informed  the  world  that  the  subjects  of  Queen  Vic- 
toria were,  in  spite  of  their  mixed  ethnological  origins, 
all  of  them  Danes  in  their  welcome  of  Princess  Alex- 
andra. Lord  Palmerston  spoke  movingly  in  the 
House  of  Commons  of  'the  independence,  the  integ- 
rity, and  the  rights  of  Denmark,'  and  added  with  a 
menace  which  its  extreme  familiarity  deprived  of 
none  of  its  effect,  'that  if  any  violent  attempt  were 
made  to  overthrow  those  rights,  and  interfere  with 
that  independence,  those  who  made  the  attempt  would 
find  in  the  result  that  it  would  not  be  Denmark  alone 
with  which  they  would  have  to  contend.'  The  rosy 
gentlemen  of  1863  cheered  loudly;  but  their  favour- 
ite's prediction  was  dismally  unfulfilled.  The  Danish 
resistance  was  stiffened  by  the  brave  language  of 
Lord  Palmerston;  the  Germans  insisted  and  directed 
Hanover  and  Saxony  to  enforce  the  decision  of  the 
Diet  by  an  occupation  of  Holstein;  and  at  that 
supreme  moment  the  King  of  Denmark  died.  His 
death  brought  into  the  field  a  pretender  to  the 
Duchies,  the  son  of  the  former  claimant,  who  gravely 
contended  that  his  father's  sale  of  the  claim  could  not 
be  taken  to  include  the  rights  of  a  son.  This  solemn 
nonsense  was  countenanced  in  Germany,  and  the 
young  man  entered  Holstein  in  the  wake  of  the 
Saxon  army.  But  whilst  the  pretender  was  striking 
ducal  attitudes  in  Kiel,  a  colder  intelligence  surveyed 


348  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

the  problem  from  Berlin,  and  Bismarck  resolved  that 
Prussia  should  take  a  hand.  Troubled  waters  were 
eminently  congenial  to  his  fishing,  and  he  came 
sharply  to  the  conclusion  that  if  the  Duchies  were 
to  change  hands,  Prussia  could  find  a  place  for  them. 
His  ruling  motive  was  rather  a  desire  to  exclude  the 
pretender,  who  would  have  created  in  Schleswig- 
Holstein  yet  another  minor  German  state  that  took 
its  tune  from  Austria,  than  any  long  prevision  of 
a  Prussian  navy  with  a  base  at  Kiel.  The  diplomats 
began  to  flit  about  between  the  capitals;  Fleury 
brought  good  advice  from  Paris,  and  Lord  Wode- 
house  urged  Denmark  to  be  gentle  with  the  Germans. 
British  opinion,  always  so  sympathetic  to  the  re- 
sistance of  small  nations  to  other  empires,  had  been 
prepared  by  Palmerston  for  heroic  intervention;  but 
the  Government  could  hardly  move  without  the  other 
parties  to  the  treaty  of  1852.  Russia  was  silent,  and 
even  Napoleon  seemed  strangely  inactive.  He  had 
a  vague  notion  that  the  population  of  the  Duchies 
was  predominantly  German;  if  that  were  so,  inter- 
vention on  the  Danish  side  would  be  a  sin  against 
the  doctrine  of  nationality.  But  the  true  cause  of 
his  inaction  was  more  human.  England  had  disap- 
pointed him  earlier  in  the  year  when  he  sought  sup- 
port against  Russia  in  the  cause  of  Poland,  and  he 
was  disinclined  to  oblige  Lord  Palmerston  by  join- 
ing England  in  support  of  Denmark.  'He  felt  him- 
self (Mr.  Disraeli  could  see  the  point)  'in  a  false 
position  with  respect  to  his  own  subjects,  because  he 
had  experienced  a  great  diplomatic  discomfiture,'  and 
he  was  in  no  mood  for  fresh  adventures.  British 
heroics  dwindled  into  protests ;  Lord  Palmerston  was 
sobered  into  a  cautious  neutrality;  and  the  tone  of 


THE  EMPEROR  349 

Germany,  when  Denmark  was  deserted,  rose  sharply. 
Prussia  asked  leave  to  enforce  the  decision  of  the 
Diet;  the  Austrians,  unwilling  that  King  William 
should  figure  as  the  sole  champion  of  German  rights, 
joined  in  the  application;  and  the  combined  forces 
of  the  two  monarchies  were  authorised  to  invade  and 
occupy  the  Duchies  in  the  name  of  Germany.  The 
result,  since  the  Danish  army  had  a  strength  of  only 
40,000  men,  was  hardly  doubtful. 

Early  in  1864  the  troop-trains  were  rolling  north- 
wards across  Germany.  Three  army  corps,  with  von 
Wrangel  in  command,  were  charged  with  the  dismal 
duty  of  crushing  Denmark;  and  the  Prussian  Guard 
moved  on  Kiel,  as  the  Austrians  on  their  left  crossed 
the  Elbe  at  Hamburg  and  went  north.  They  marched 
proudly  forward  past  the  Saxon  cantonments  in  Hoi- 
stein  ;  but  there  was  little  scope  in  a  narrow  peninsula 
for  brilliance  against  a  retreating  enemy,  and  the 
Prussian  verve  of  1870  hardly  appears  (although  the 
Red  Prince  was  a  corps  commander)  in  the  cautious 
operations  of  1864.  In  the  first  days  of  February 
they  fumbled  at  the  fortified  line  of  the  Danevirke; 
but  the  Danes  slipped  away  to  the  north,  fell  back 
before  the  invasion,  and  turned  at  Diippel  in  the 
Sundevit  to  bar  the  road  to  Copenhagen  and  the 
Islands.  The  redoubts  of  Diippel,  which  lined  the 
little  hills  above  Sonderburg,  were  a  faint  reflection 
of  the  lines  of  Torres  Vedras;  and  as  the  Prussians 
lumbered  after  them,  the  Danes  stood  to  their  guns. 
Outside  the  lines  of  Diippel,  Schleswig  was  almost 
cleared.  The  invaders  even  exceeded  their  authority 
by  passing  the  frontier  of  the  Danish  king- 
dom, pressing  forward  into  Jutland,  and  reaching 
Kolding.  Europe  vociferated  its  protests;  but  no 


350  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Power  moved.  Bismarck  was  bland  and  the  war 
went  on.  As  Earl  Russell  drafted  those  clever  Notes 
of  his  and  wrestled  silently  with  the  German  sym- 
pathies of  his  sovereign  (Albert,  she  felt  sure,  would 
have  sided  with  Bismarck  even  though  Albert 
Edward's  pretty  wife  was  a  Dane),  the  guns  were 
booming  in  the  green  fields  before  Diippel.  The 
Danish  lines  held  for  two  months;  but  in  the  last 
week  of  April  they  fell,  and  Prussia  came  to  a  con- 
ference in  London  with  all  the  comfort  of  a  fait 
accompli.  For  two  months  more  the  collective  wis- 
dom of  Europe  struggled  with  the  Duchies.  The 
French  (how  amusing  it  seemed  in  1864  and  how  like 
the  fantastic  Emperor)  proposed  a  plebiscite.  At 
one  moment,  after  the  Danes  had  beaten  the 
Austrians  at  sea  off  Heligoland,  Lord  Palmerston 
looked  fierce  and  threatened  Austria  with  the  Chan- 
nel Fleet.  'I  determined,'  as  he  informed  his  Foreign 
Secretary  with  sporting  jocularity,  'to  make  a  notch 
off  my  own  bat.'  But  he  could  hardly  bombard 
Vienna  and  Berlin  from  the  sea;  the  guns  of  the 
Warrior  did  not  range  far  into  Central  Europe.  A 
field-force  of  20,000  men  was  useless  without  an  ally 
on  the  Continent ;  and  the  Emperor,  who  might  have 
moved,  was  sitting  gloomily  in  Paris,  tracing  new 
frontiers  on  the  map  of  Schleswig-Holstein.  Diplo- 
macy wrung  its  hands  and  withdrew  once  more,  and 
the  war  was  resumed.  There  was  a  last  flicker  of 
Danish  bravery  at  Alsen;  but  the  pace  was  faster, 
since  von  Wr angel  had  gone  home  and  the  Red 
Prince  was  in  command  with  Count  von  Moltke  at 
his  elbow.  The  war  died  down;  there  was  an  armis- 
tice, and  by  the  Peace  of  Vienna  the  King  of  Den- 
mark ceded  his  Duchies  to  the  conquerors. 


THE  EMPEROR  351 

Diippel  was  the  first  part  of  the  Prussian  trilogy. 
Bismarck  had  fought  his  war,  and  in  the  last  months 
of  1864  Schleswig-Holstein  was  the  joint  property 
of  Austria  and  Prussia:  it  was  a  queer  result.  But 
the  stake  in  the  game  was  not  a  few  fields  north  of 
Hamburg  or  a  port  on  the  Baltic  coast.  He  was 
playing  steadily  for  control  of  the  German  machine, 
of  the  complex  of  kingdoms  and  duchies  which  regu- 
lated their  common  affairs  in  the  Diet  of  Frankfort 
under  a  system  which  neatly  combined  the  verbiage 
of  a  parliament  with  the  deliberation  of  diplomacy. 
At  present  Prussia  shared  it  with  Austria;  but 
Austria  could  be  beaten  in  the  field  if  one  had  an 
army,  an  ally  and  a  casus  belli.  Prussia  had  ( General 
von  Roon  had  seen  to  it)  an  army;  and  General 
Count  Helmuth  von  Moltke,  who  was  always  writing 
in  his  room,  had  a  sheaf  of  plans.  The  ally,  since 
Russia  was  always  too  late  and  (when  she  arrived) 
too  powerful,  must  be  Italy;  and  the  awkward  con- 
dominium in  the  Duchies  could  provide  a  quarrel 
whenever  one  was  wanted.  The  parts  for  the  new 
piece  were  obvious.  Victor  Emmanuel  was  to  play 
Pylades  to  King  William's  Orestes,  while  Napoleon 
was  cast  for  a  thinking  part  in  attitudes  of  dignified 
neutrality;  and  during  1865  Bismarck  attended  dili- 
gently to  the  rehearsals.  The  manipulation  of  Italy 
was  easy,  since  the  direction  of  Italian  policy  was 
determined  by  an  irresistible  craving  for  Venice,  and 
Prussia  felt  no  difficulty  in  promising  this  amputa- 
tion from  the  territory  of  her  late  ally.  The  Prussian 
ambassador  appeared  in  Florence  with  a  discreet 
offer  for  the  hand  of  Italy,  who  replied  with  becom- 
ing modesty  that  the  kind  gentleman  must  ask  the 
Emperor  Napoleon.  So  French  neutrality  became 


352  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

the  chief  essential  in  the  new  combination,  and  in  the 
next  phase  Bismarck  devoted  his  ingenuity  to  obtain- 
ing it.  The  Emperor  on  general  principles  had 
always  been  favourable  to  Prussia;  as  a  statesman 
of  the  old  type  he  welcomed  this  solid  counterpoise 
to  Austria,  and  his  private  convictions  were  gratified 
by  the  spectacle  of  a  busy  German  state  which  might 
one  day  do  for  Germany  what  Piedmont  had  done  for 
Italy.  The  revelation  of  St.  Helena  had  included 
'I' agglomeration,  la  concentration  des  memes  peuples 
geographiques' ;  Napoleon  I.  had  prophesied  a  new 
European  order  based  upon  fl 'agglomeration  et  la 
confederation  des  grands  peuples/  German  unity 
was  a  respectable  cause  over  which  an  intellectual 
Emperor  might  preside  if  he  wished  to  keep  abreast 
of  the  time;  and  he  was  always  inclined  to  gracious- 
ness  when  his  callers  came  from  Berlin.  King 
William  had  displayed  his  excellent  manners  at 
Compiegne;  M.  Bismarck  was  a  most  entertain- 
ing person;  and  when  General  von  Roon  came  to 
the  French  manreuvres  of  1864,  there  was  a  charming 
scene  at  Chalons  on  a  September  day  with  the  little 
Prince  Imperial  stretching  up  to  hand  the  Legion  of 
Hon6ur  to  his  father's  guest — they  made  quite  an 
anniversary  of  it  in  Germany,  since  it  was  the  second 
of  the  month  and  six  years  later  the  Emperor  spent 
it  at  Sedan.  With  this  amiable  mood  prevailing  at 
the  Tuileries  French  diplomats  were  politely  receptive 
when  Bismarck,  in  his  expansive  way,  began  to  speak 
casually  of  French  advances  on  the  Rhine  or  in 
French-speaking  countries.  His  policy  commenced 
to  defer  elaborately  to  the  Empire,  and  his  ambas-- 
sador  in  Paris  professed  an  admiration  of  Eugenie 
that  was  faintly  grotesque.  Late  in  1865,  when  the 


THE  EMPEROR  353 

Court  was  at  Biarritz,  he  came  himself  to  consult  the 
dull  eyes  of  the  oracle.  The  big,  bald  man  drove  up 
to  the  Villa  Eugenie;  and  as  the  great  Biscayan 
rollers  broke  along  the  coast,  he  talked  interminably 
to  the  Emperor.  There  were  no  promises;  but  as 
their  talk  trailed  slowly  across  the  map,  Bismarck 
could  see  that  Venice  still  haunted  il  muto  Imperator, 
that  he  would  abet  a  war  in  which  Venice  might  be 
won  for  Italy.  Le  spectre  de  Venise  erre  dans 
les  salles  des  Tuileries.  It  had  beckoned  once; 
and  Napoleon  sent  Maximilian  to  Mexico.  It 
beckoned  again;  he  stared  and  sent  the  Prussians  to 
Sadowa. 

That  autumn  there  were  storms  along  the  Basque 
coast.  The  waves  thundered  outside  the  Emperor's 
windows,  and  Bismarck  went  back  to  Berlin.  He 
returned  with  persistent  gallantry  to  the  courtship 
of  Italy.  But  the  Italians  were  unnaturally  coy,  full 
of  suspicion,  nervous  that  their  martial  wooer  had  no 
real  intention  of  fighting  Austria.  Eager  to  prove 
his  sincerity  (the  situation  had  all  the  charm  of 
novelty)  the  Prussian  minister  hastened  to  pick  his 
quarrel  with  Vienna,  and  the  invaluable  Duchies  came 
in  play  once  more.  The  condominium  in  Schleswig- 
Holstein  had  ended  in  partition;  after  a  mild  course 
of  medicinal  diplomacy,  with  a  royal  conference  at 
Carlsbad  and  an  inter-allied  convention  at  Gastein, 
Austria  had  taken  Holstein  and  left  Schleswig  to 
Prussia.  But  such  cures  are  rarely  final,  and  early 
in  1866  the  effects  of  the  treatment  began  to  wear 
off.  The  Austrian  command  in  Altona  permitted  a 
public  statement  of  the  claims,  the  forgotten  claims, 
of  the  pretender  to  the  Duchies  for  which  Germany 
had  gone  crusading  against  Denmark  in  1864.  Bis- 
23 


354  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

marck  was  scandalised.  After  the  war,  it  seemed, 
his  tender  conscience  had  been  tortured  by  legal 
doubts  as  to  the  true  ownership  of  Schleswig-Hol- 
stein,  and  his  torments  had  been  allayed  by  the 
opinion  of  some  obliging  jurists  in  Berlin,  who 
advised  that  the  King  of  Denmark  had  been  the 
rightful  owner  after  all.  That  might  have  seemed, 
in  view  of  the  fact  that  he  had  been  expelled  by  force 
of  arms,  unfortunate.  But  Bismarck,  haunted  by  few 
idle  regrets,  derived  infinite  consolation  from  the  fact 
that  the  Danish  title,  which  was  above  suspicion,  had 
been  transferred  by  treaty  to  Austria  and  Prussia. 
It  followed  that  in  tolerating  the  antics  of  the  pre- 
tender in  the  Austrian  zone,  von  Gablenz  was 
trifling  with  sedition,  and  a  solemn  complaint  was 
transmitted  to  Vienna.  The  debate  rapidly  became 
acrimonious,  and  Italy  was  invited  to  observe  the 
drift  of  Prussia  towards  war.  The  effect  upon  Italy 
was  immediate.  Napoleon  was  hastily  consulted  as 
to  the  propriety  of  a  combination  with  Prussia 
against  Austria ;  and  when  he  blessed  the  union,  Italy 
yielded  gracefully  to  the  embraces  of  Bismarck.  An 
Italian  soldier  appeared  in  Berlin ;  his  mission  related 
to  the  technical  improvements  in  the  Prussian  needle- 
gun,  but  his  time  was  spent  almost  entirely  in  the 
more  enlivening  company  of  Count  Bismarck.  Their 
conversation  strayed  from  the  needle-gun  into  haute 
politique.  By  a  fortunate  coincidence  General 
Govone  was  empowered  to  negotiate,  and  in  April, 
1866,  they  signed  a  secret  treaty  of  alliance 
for  a  war  against  Austria,  provided  (Italy  was 
a  trifle  impatient)  that  it  opened  within  three 
months. 

The  problem  before  Bismarck  had  passed  from  the 


THE  EMPEROR  355 

uncertainties  of  diplomacy  into  the  more  congenial 
precision  of  arithmetic.  If  he  could  force  Austria 
into  war  within  twelve  weeks,  he  would  have  Italy 
for  an  ally.  He  steadied  his  hand,  made  a  war  in 
nine  weeks,  and  won  it  in  seven  weeks  more.  In  the 
spring  days  of  1866,  when  the  Prussian  artillery  was 
buying  horses  and  the  Austrians  were  moving  cavalry 
up  into  the  northern  provinces,  both  sides  turned 
nervous  eyes  to  Paris.  The  Emperor  might  throw 
an  army  into  either  scale,  and  he  was  the  master  of 
Italian  policy.  Prince  Metternich,  whose  lady  stood 
so  well  at  Court,  fluttered  round  with  offers  from 
Vienna;  and  the  Prussian  ambassador  asked  Napo- 
leon to  name  his  price.  He  fumbled  a  little  with  the 
maps  (the  Emperor  was  not  well  that  year)  and 
muttered  something  about  Belgium — or  Luxemburg, 
perhaps — or  was  there  a  town  or  so  in  the  Saar 
basin?  It  had  been  so  simple  to  make  one's  terms 
with  Cavour  in  1858.  But  somehow  the  world  seemed 
more  crowded  now;  the  provinces  which  one  might 
have  asked  for  were  full  of  Germans,  and  it  would 
be  awkward  for  the  high-priest  of  nationalism  to 
transgress  the  sacred  dogma  of  nationality.  'Ah!  si 
vous  aviez  une  Savoie!'  said  the  Emperor  a  little 
helplessly,  and  fell  back  into  silence.  He  made  no 
terms  with  Prussia,  because  (it  was  a  strange  con- 
fession for  an  Emperor,  and  his  country  never  for- 
gave it)  he  was  disinterested.  He  was  asked  to  ap- 
prove the  reconquest  of  Venice  and  the  promotion  of 
Prussia  in  Germany;  and  since  he  approved  already, 
there  was  no  need  to  purchase  his  approval.  Be- 
sides, the  Prussians  might  not  win;  one  must  wait 
for  the  result;  as  always,  il  ne  faut  rien  brusquer. 
Napoleon  was  ill  that  summer,  and  he  had  a  sick 


356  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

man's  fear  of  sharp  decisions.  Anxious  ambassadors 
flitted  in  and  out  of  his  study;  but  they  saw  little  in 
his  dull  eyes  beyond  the  reflection  of  their  own  un- 
certainty. Sometimes  he  dropped  a  hint  about  the 
Rhine  or  seemed  to  promise  Venice  to  Italy  without 
a  war.  Only  once,  as  the  troop-train  rumbled  slowly 
across  Prussia  and  the  Slid  Armee  stood  to  its  arms 
in  the  Italian  sunshine,  the  veil  seemed  lifted  at  the 
Tuileries,  and  the  Emperor  emerged  from  his  in- 
action. There  had  been  a  little  trouble  in  the  Cham- 
ber, where  M.  Thiers,  whose  taste  was  always  for  an 
active  foreign  policy,  pointed  a  menacing  finger 
towards  the  lengthening  shadow  of  Prussia  and  re- 
proved the  Empire  for  its  half-hearted  expedients. 
Napoleon  replied  with  a  firm  speech  at  a  provincial 
meeting,  and  a  bucolic  audience  at  an  agricultural 
show  was  startled  and  edified  by  an  emphatic  state- 
ment of  its  sovereign's  detestation  of  the  treaty- 
system  of  1815.  With  a  sudden  recollection  of  his 
responsibilities  as  the  arbiter  of  Europe  he  invited 
the  world  once  more  to  bring  its  troubles  to  a  con- 
gress. Prussia  and  Italy  had  mobilised;  yet  both 
accepted  the  Emperor's  invitation.  The  neutral 
Powers  consented  to  attend;  but  Austria,  with  an 
angry  fling  of  the  madness  which  had  thrown  her 
into  war  in  1859,  refused  the  congress  unless  it  were 
pledged  beforehand  to  maintain  the  status  quo.  The 
Emperor  could  do  no  more,  and  in  two  weeks  Cen- 
tral Europe  was  at  war. 

The  war  of  1866  was  designed  to  secure  for  Prussia 
the  mastery  of  Germany,  and  Bismarck's  objectives 
were  neatly  combined  in  the  casus  belli.  A  promise 
of  Venice  and  the  quarrel  with  Austria  over  Holstein 
brought  Italy  into  play.  The  German  states  were 


THE  EMPEROR  357 

still  neutral.  But  when  Prussian  troops  moved  into 
Holstein  and  challenged  the  Austrian  garrison, 
Austria  went  in  quest  of  allies  to  the  German  Diet. 
There  was  a  vote  in  June  upon  Prussia's  action,  and 
South  Germany  went  into  the  war  behind  Austria 
whilst  Saxony  and  the  blind  King  of  Hanover  waited 
for  the  first  impact  of  the  Prussian  forces.  Before 
the  month  was  out,  the  Hanoverians  had  fought  at 
Langensalza  and  were  prisoners;  the  Saxons  were 
falling  back  into  Austria,  and  the  Prussian  armies 
were  feeling  their  slow  way  down  through  the  hills 
into  Bohemia.  Away  to  the  south  in  Italy  the  Arch- 
duke Albert  had  broken  the  Italians  at  Custozza; 
the  Austrian  cavalry  went  sabring  down  the  road  to 
Villafranca,  and  the  old  taste  of  victory  came  back 
to  the  white  coats.  But  a  victory  less  in  Italy  and 
two  corps  more  in  the  north  might  have  saved  Austria. 
The  Prussians  trailed  slowly  down  into  Bohemia,  and 
von  Benedek  stood  uneasily  on  the  defensive.  Gradu- 
ally, as  the  needle-guns  cracked  in  the  green  valleys 
of  the  Riesengebirge,  he  was  driven  in  upon  the  posi- 
tion of  Koniggratz.  The  Prussians  began  to  feel 
their  advantage  at  Gitschin  and  Nachod;  and 
although  the  Austrians  held  their  ground  at  Trau- 
tenau,  Benedek  could  see  the  slow  converging  of 
defeat.  He  had  lost  heavily  in  the  opening  move- 
ments, and  he  telegraphed  desperately  to  Vienna  for 
an  immediate  peace.  Franz-Joseph  answered  him  on 
July  1  with  curt  orders  for  a  battle;  and  twenty- 
four  hours  later,  when  a  royal  train  steamed  into 
Vienna  in  the  dark  hours  of  a  summer  night,  the 
King  of  Saxony  found  the  station  all  decorated  with 
flowers  to  receive  him,  and  on  the  platform  he  could 
see  by  the  flaring  lights  an  Emperor  whose  face  was 


358  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

as  white  as  his  uniform.    Franz-Joseph  had  the  news 
of  his  battle,  and  its  name  was  Sadowa. 

As  the  Austrian^  stumbled  back  towards  Vienna 
and  the  astonished  eyes  of  Europe  followed  them 
down  the  dusty  roads,  the  French  Emperor  made  a 
hesitating  reappearance  on  the  stage.  It  had  been 
his  design  to  let  the  war  take  its  course  and,  when  the 
combatants  were  panting,  to  make  a  dazzling  re- 
entry as  the  deus  ex  machina  whose  neat  adjustment 
of  the  crisis  would  close  the  play;  and  he  seemed 
to  have  his  cue  when  the  Austrians,  in  an  adroit 
attempt  to  disengage  themselves  from  the  war  on  the 
southern  front  and  throw  all  their  weight  northwards 
against  the  Prussians,  invited  Napoleon  to  mediate 
and  surrendered  Venice  to  the  French  to  abide  the 
mediator's  award.  Prussia  and  Italy  were  promptly 
notified  of  the  Emperor's  good  offices,  and  he  waited 
with  dignity  to  award  the  prizes.  In  his  old  impetu- 
ous mood  he  might  have  struck  a  firmer  attitude. 
The  Prussian  armies  were  in  Bohemia  and  the 
western  frontier  lay  open  to  the  French ;  mobilisation 
and  a  peremptory  summons  to  Berlin  would  have 
satisfied  French  vanity,  which  smarted  a  little  under 
the  sudden  revelation  that  other  armies  could  win 
victories  in  Europe.  But  there  was  an  uneasy  feeling 
in  Paris  that  supplies  were  low  and  munitions  which 
might  have  served  on  the  Rhine  had  been  diverted  to 
Mexico;  the  Emperor  dragged  wearily  to  Council  in 
cruel  pain ;  and  when  he  saw  a  diplomat  from  Vienna, 
he  could  only  mutter,  'Je  ne  suis  pas  pret  a  la 
guerre'  The  French  mediation,  since  there  was  to 
be  no  armed  intervention,  trailed  off  into  diplomacy; 
and  since  Bismarck  was  disinclined  to  be  given  prizes 
which  he  had  already  taken,  the  Emperor  was  left 


THE  EMPEROR  359 

making  dignified  gestures  to  an  empty  class-room. 
Even  the  Italians  marched  into  Venetia  without  wait- 
ing for  his  permission,  and  the  French  ambassador 
pursued  the  Prussian  Government  with  offers  which 
were  not  required.  The  adventurous  Bismarck,  who 
always  derived  an  unnatural  enjoyment  from  wear- 
ing uniform,  had  the  habit,  peculiar  in  a  statesman, 
of  accompanying  the  Prussian  army  in  the  field.  He 
had  ridden  wildly  about  on  the  night  after  Sadowa, 
and  it  was  his  practice  to  direct  Prussian  policy  in  a 
pickelhaube  and  spurs  from  a  wandering  chancellery 
at  the  royal  headquarters.  Napoleon  communicated 
with  him  through  the  tactful  medium  of  (how  the 
omens  were  beginning  to  accumulate)  M.  Benedetti; 
and  the  French  ambassador,  a  little  scared  and  dis- 
consolate after  trailing  exhaustingly  through  the 
back  areas  of  an  advancing  army,  came  upon  the 
Prussian  minister  late  at  night  in  an  empty  house. 
The  big  man  was  writing  by  candle-light,  and  a  large 
revolver  lay  on  the  table  beside  him.  He  played  a 
little  brutally  with  the  French  offer  of  mediation, 
whilst  the  Prussian  armies  came  slowly  within  sight 
of  the  tall  spire  of  Vienna.  The  last  embers  of 
Austrian  resistance  were  stamped  out  or  scattered 
eastwards  into  Hungary,  where  the  little  Rudolph 
was  clinging  to  his  mother's  skirts  and  staring  with 
round  eyes  at  the  cheering  Magyars;  the  Italians 
were  beaten  at  sea  off  Lissa;  but  there  was  cholera 
in  the  Prussian  camp,  and  it  was  time  to  break  off 
the  war  and  count  the  spoil.  Whilst  France  stood 
waiting  to  crown  the  victors,  Bismarck  borrowed  a 
gesture  from  the  first  Napoleon  and  crowned  himself. 
Checking  the  soldiers,  who  were  anxious  to  march 
behind  their  beating  drums  into  Vienna,  he  signed 


360  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

peace  with  Austria  at  Nikolsburg  in  the  last  week  of 
July.  Franz-Joseph  ceded  Holstein  and  Venetia 
and  paid  a  trifling  indemnity;  the  German  Diet 
ceased  to  exist ;  and  in  its  place  there  was  to  be  a  new 
union  of  Germany,  from  which  Austria  was  now 
excluded.  The  new  unit  would  be  dominated  by 
Prussia,  and  its  members  were  warned  by  the  annexa- 
tion of  Hanover  that  submission  to  Berlin  was  the 
sole  condition  of  existence.  It  was  a  rich  result. 

The  war  was  over,  and  France  was  left  in  a  com- 
manding attitude  without  the  pride  of  having  ended 
it.  The  oracle  had  spoken,  but  there  were  no  sup- 
pliants in  the  temple.  Chantecler  had  crowed,  and 
the  sun  had  risen;  but  there  was  an  uneasy  suspicion 
that  the  sunrise  owed  little  to  his  efforts.  Paris  was 
sullen.  French  opinion  had  been  stung  by  the  Prus- 
sian victory  and  the  Emperor's  failure  to  preside  over 
the  readjustment  of  Central  Europe;  and  in  the  next 
phase  his  policy  was  driven  to  a  dismal  competition 
for  a  consolation-prize.  It  was  the  policy,  as  Bis- 
marck called  it,  of  Trinkgeld.  The  positions  were 
altered  now;  where  once  a  Prussian  minister  had 
walked  delicately  on  the  sands  at  Biarritz,  deferential 
French  diplomatists  held  out  a  hat  to  Prussia  for  a 
trifle  of  the  Rhineland,  a  cast-off  fortress,  an  old 
pair  of  German  towns.  The  Emperor  had  made  no 
stipulation  before  the  event;  but  after  the  war  he 
came  to  ask  for  his  reward,  to  present,  as  they  said 
in  1866,  la  note  de  I'aubergiste.  It  was  a  poor- 
spirited  expedient.  But  French  opinion  was  discon- 
tented in  the  pervading  air  of  Prussian  victory,  and 
M.  Rouher  (it  was  just  one  of  his  rouherenes,  as  the 
Emperor  called  them)  was  so  anxious  to  have  some- 
thing to  show  in  the  Chamber.  Parliamentary 


THE  EMPEROR  361 

management  is  an  injudicious  guide  for  foreign 
policy;  but  France  seemed  restive  and  the  Emperor 
was  far  from  well,  'like  a  gambler,'  as  Mr.  Disraeli 
wrote,  'who  has  lost  half  his  fortune  and  restless  to 
recover ;  likely  to  make  a  coup,  which  may  be  fatally 
final  for  himself.'  He  made  the  coup;  but  in  those 
hot  days  of  1866  his  hand  shook  a  little. 

King  William  was  riding  through  the  cheers  in  the 
Berlin  streets,  and  Napoleon  was  huddled  in  pain, 
sipping  his  water  at  Vichy,  when  the  first  demand 
came  to  Bismarck.  Mainz  and  the  left  bank  of  the 
Rhine  seemed  a  good  deal  to  ask  for;  but  M.  Bene- 
detti  was  suave  and  did  his  best.  Quite  blandly, 
with  a  vague  hint  that  some  other  article  might 
perhaps  take  his  customer's  fancy,  Bismarck  refused. 
Whilst  Benedetti  posted  off  to  France  for  further 
instructions,  his  offer  became  a  useful  card  in  Bis- 
marck's hand.  It  was  gravely  reported  to  St.  Peters- 
burg as  a  disturbing  indication  of  restless  French 
ambitions,  and  a  calculated  indiscretion  to  a  journal- 
ist informed  the  world  of  the  rebuff  to  France  and 
alarmed  good  Germans  with  the  news  that  Napoleon 
was  waiting  hungrily  beyond  the  Rhine.  Napoleon 
was  sick  with  dumb  pain  at  Vichy,  and  he  seemed  to 
turn  blindly  like  a  weary  bull  as  Bismarck  planted 
the  banderillas.  For  a  few  days  Imperial  policy  was 
distracted  by  the  sunlit  tragedy  of  Mexico,  as  the 
Empress  Charlotte  came  to  Paris  for  her  audience 
and  the  Emperor  dragged  back  to  meet  her,  sat 
wearily  through  a  bitter  afternoon  of  heat  and  rail- 
ing, and  watched  the  slow  drift  of  an  Empire  to 
disaster.  Then  Benedeiti  was  back  at  his  post  again 
with  a  new  proposal.  One  might  take  Luxemburg 
and  Belgium,  if  Bismarck  would  agree,  with  a  free 


362  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

hand  to  Prussia  in  Germany  and  an  alliance  between 
Paris  and  Berlin  if  England  took  a  pedantic  view  of 
Belgian  neutrality.  It  was  a  simple  treaty,  and 
Bismarck  took  a  draft  of  it  in  M.  Benedetti's  writing. 
Then  he  refused.  The  draft  was  useful,  since  he 
showed  it  to  Bavaria  to  prove  that  France  had  sold 
South  Germany  for  Belgium;  and  one  day  he  might 
show  it  to  England.  Austria  had  signed  peace  in  a 
hotel  at  Prague;  Bavaria  entered  the  Prussian  alli- 
ance ;  and  the  new  North  German  Confederation  was 
under  construction.  Bismarck  had  planted  his 
banderillas,  and  soon  it  would  be  time  for  the  espada. 
He  had  fought  Diippel  and  Sadowa;  but  the  Prus- 
sian piece  was  a  trilogy,  and  he  was  waiting  for 
Sedan. 


XVI 

IT  was  the  year  1867,  and  the  brilliance  of  the 
Empire  (for  it  had  still  brilliance)  was  a  glow  of 
evening,  a  vivid  light  upon  quiet  hills  that  face  a 
sinking  sun.  The  sky  was  still  bright;  but  there 
was  a  strange  chill  upon  the  Empire.  The  clear 
dawn  of  1852  seemed  half  a  century  away,  and  quite 
suddenly  the  Emperor  had  become  an  old  man. 
Something  in  Eugenie's  sad-eyed  beauty  was  begin- 
ning to  fade,  and  the  Court  had  aged.  Where  once 
Bacciochi  had  played  the  barrel  organ  for  the 
dancers,  there  was  a  grave  succession  of  distinguished 
visitors;  and  the  only  sounds  about  the  palace  were 
the  young  voices  of  the  Prince  Imperial  and  his  small 
friends.  Slowly  the  Emperor  seemed  to  fade  into  the 
background,  to  smoke  his  cigarettes  and  speak  low 
behind  the  great  moustache  in  that  far-away  voice  of 
his,  to  turn  the  regard  vague  et  doux  of  his  visage 
muet  et  triste  with  the  air  de  reve  with  which  he  drifts 
through  that  story  into  which  M.  Bergeret  has  put  so 
much  of  the  art  of  M.  Anatole  France.  He  was  be- 
coming the  shadowy  figure  of  a  second  Napoleonic 
legend,  and  Imperial  policy  turned  increasingly  to 
the  preparation  of  a  future  in  which  an  Empress- 
Regent  should  govern*  France  in  the  name  of  a  pale 
young  Emperor.  The  boy  was  not  strong;  but 
Eugenie  was  slowly  schooled  to  stand  behind  his 
throne,  and  gradually  the  smiling  figure  of  la  Heine 

363 


364  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Crinoline  faded  into  the  stiff  outline  of  a  Regent. 
She  had  governed  with  a  Council  of  Regency  during 
the  Italian  war  and  later  when  the  Emperor  was  in 
Algeria,  and  M.  Merimee,  who  could  see  the  change 
in  her,  had  a  faint,  ironical  regret:  'II  riy  a  plus 
d' Eugenie,  dl  n'y  a  plus  qu'une  imperatrice.  Je  plains 
et  j 'admire/  In  earlier  years  romantic  critics  of  the 
Emperor's  policy,  who  loved  to  detect  a  hidden  hand, 
to  catch  a  low  whisper  in  his  ear,  had  exaggerated  her 
influence,  her  Spanish  prejudices,  her  distaste  (which 
M.  Merimee  hardly  shared)  for  anti-clericals.  But 
under  the  later  Empire,  since  the  future  belonged  to 
her  and  to  Lulu,  she  played  a  larger  part. 

It  was  an  uncertain  future,  since  the  old  certainties 
of  1852  seemed  to  have  lost  their  hold  upon  the 
generation  of  1867.  The  Empire  had  been  made 
because  France  was  haunted  by  the  confused,  ignoble 
vision  of  1848.  But  the  men  who  had  seen  the  great 
crowds  go  roaring  round  the  Hotel  de  Ville  and 
heard  the  dreadful  silence  as  Cavaignac's  infantry 
stormed  the  barricades  were  in  middle  life  now,  and 
their  sons  could  remember  little  of  the  Empire  except 
the  police,  the  censorship,  and  the  heavy-handed 
Prefets  who  seemed  to  have  remade  France  in  their 
own  image,  as  M.  Haussmann  had  remade  Paris  in 
his.  The  Revolution  had  been  the  raison  d'etre  of  the 
Empire;  and  in  1867  the  Revolution  was  half  for- 
gotten. It  was  even  regretted  a  trifle  sentimentally 
by  the  Parisian  undergraduates,  who  displayed  their 
aptitude  for  public  life  by  shouting  jokes  about 
Badinguet  round  corners  at  policemen  and  dreamed 
wistfully  of  the  past  glories  of  the  jeunesse  des  ecoles 
behind  the  barricades.  The  Empire  was  failing  in  its 
appeal  to  youth.  It  had  made  few  recruits ;  le  maitre 


THE  EMPEROR  365 

n'aime  pas  les  visages  nouveaux,  and  his  ministries 
were  dismal  alternations  of  elder  statesmen.  Young 
gentlemen  preferred  to  write  ingenious  pamphlets 
in  which  Machiavelli  expounded  the  principles  of 
Bonapartism  to  a  scandalised  Montesquieu  (and  the 
learned  Nilus  found  forty  years  later  the  raw  ma- 
terial for  his  Protocols  of  the  Elders — so  far  removed 
from  the  Tuileries — of  Zdon) .  The  glamour  of  the 
Empire  had  begun  to  fade;  it  had  not  made  a  lucky 
throw  since  1859:  Rome  was  a  riddle,  Sadowa  was 
a  shame,  and  Mexico  was  a  regret.  The  new  genera- 
tion seemed  to  turn  away,  found  small  encourage- 
ment to  enter  a  service  where  all  the  rewards  were 
earmarked  for  M.  Rouher,  and  preferred  to  snigger 
over  the  ingenious  side-hits  of  the  Propos  de 
Labienus  at  Augustus  and  his  simple  enjoyment  of 
the  company  of  Drusilla  and  Tertulla  and  Terentilla 
and  Rufilla  and  Silvia  Titiscenia  and  even  more. 
The  Empire  persevered  in  its  performance;  but  it 
was  beginning  in  1867  to  find  the  public  a  trifle 
sceptical. 

It  was  the  paradox  of  the  Emperor's  system  that, 
like  Lord  Palmerston,  he  preached  liberty  to  foreign 
countries  and  maintained  reaction  in  his  own.  But 
although  his  Liberalism  began  abroad,  there  was  no 
reason  (since  he  was  not  the  leader  of  a  Whig  Party) 
why  it  should  end  there,  and  he  returned  with  some 
vigour  to  the  project,  which  Morny  had  let  drop  in 
1865,  for  a  Liberal  Empire.  It  was  the  only  hope,  if 
youth  was  to  be  reconciled  to  the  Empire,  if  Lulu  was 
to  inherit  the  future;  and  M.  Walewski,  who  had 
followed  Morny  as  President  of  the  Chamber,  seemed 
to  catch  an  echo  of  his  views.  There  was  still  the 
haunting  question  with  which  the  Emperor  was 


366  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

always  faced:  fOu  trouver  I'homme?'  Perhaps  the 
legacy  of  Morny's  odd  friendship  with  M.  Ollivier 
would  answer  it.  The  dark  young  man  in  spectacles 
had  been  once  or  twice  at  the  Tuileries;  once  he  had 
gone  to  an  evening  party  when  the  Emperor  was 
away,  and  Eugenie  discussed  a  cab  strike  and  told 
him  that  she  was  a  socialist  at  sixteen,  and  once  she 
sent  for  him,  and  as  they  sat  talking,  a  quiet  door 
half  opened ;  Eugenie  made  a  sign,  and  the  Emperor 
walked  in;  there  were  some  courtesies  and  M.  Ollivier 
lectured  his  sovereign  upon  liberty.  The  movement 
of  parties  in  the  Chamber  was  drifting  him  to  the 
leadership  of  a  group  which  lay  midway  between  the 
stiff  Imperialists  and  the  republicans  of  the  Left. 
Now  he  was  taken  at  his  word;  the  Empire  was 
inclined  to  take  the  plunge  into  constitutionalism, 
although  Eugenie  felt  that  it  was  premature  and 
would  have  preferred  to  postpone  it,  with  other  fire- 
works, for  her  son's  accession;  and  in  the  first  days 
of  1867  Walewski  offered  M.  Ollivier  the  Ministry 
of  Public  Instruction  with  duties  as  official  advocate 
in  the  Chamber.  In  the  failing  light  of  a  winter 
afternoon  M.  Ollivier  slipped  into  the  Tuileries  and 
saw  his  sovereign.  The  Deputy  pointed  the  way  to 
a  more  constitutional  Empire  with  parliamentary 
ministers  and  freedom  of  public  meetings  and  the 
press,  and  Napoleon  was  anxious  to  do  'quelque  chose 
de  resolu  et  de  liberal/  Only  one  must  avoid  'I'wr 
de  vouloir  me  faire  pardonner  mes  echecs  au  Mexique 
et  en  Allemagne.  Par  des  raisons  qu'il  serait  trop 
long  d'expliquer  je  rial  pas  pu  profiler  des  affaires 
allemandes  et  je  suis  obUge  de  revenir  du  Mexique. 
Dans  cette  situation  de  concessions  ne  mfaffaibli- 
raientelles  pas?"  M.  Ollivier  thought  not,  and  he 


THE  EMPEROR  367 

went  out  into  the  dark  streets  with  a  promise  to  come 
back  and  talk  to  the  Empress.  He  found  her  a  shade 
unfriendly  to  the  movement,  but  the  Emperor  wrote 
him  a  letter  full  of  decision : 

'Pour  frapper  les  esprits  par  des  mesures  decis'voes  je 
voudrais  d'un  coup  etablir  ce  qu'on  a  appele  le  couronne- 
ment  de  I'edificej  je  voudrais  le  faire,  afin  de  ne  plus  y 
revenir  .  .  .' 

Unfortunately  M.  Ollivier  in  1867  clung  to  the 
virtuous  detachment  of  a  private  member;  his  tender 
conscience  shrank  from  the  indignity  of  office ;  and  his 
sovereign,  who  might  have  gained  a  Liberal  minister, 
received  only  enlightened  advice.  Napoleon's  good 
impulses  remained  in  the  official  charge  of  M. 
Rouher,  and  the  coyness  of  M.  Ollivier  sentenced  the 
whole  project  to  futility.  The  new  programme  was 
embodied  in  a  public  letter  from  the  Emperor  to  the 
Minister  of  State,  in  which  'le  couronnement  de 
redifice  eleve  par  la  volonte  nationale*  was  to  be 
achieved  by  a  revision  of  the  press-law  and  the  attend- 
ance of  ministers  in  the  Chamber  to  debate  and 
answer  questions.  It  was  not  easy  to  feel  enthusiasm 
for  the  Imperial  manifesto  of  January  19,  1867, 
since  the  promises  which  it  contained  were  of  the 
mildest,  and  even  they  were  to  be  performed  by  a 
ministry  which  profoundly  disbelieved  in  them.  Once 
more  the  Empire  had  made  a  vague  gesture  of 
Liberalism  and  relapsed  into  the  easier  exercises  of 
reaction.  There  was  a  faint  revival  of  parliamentary 
life;  M.  Walewski  brought  the  tribune  out  of  store, 
and  after  certain  drastic  alterations  required  by  the 
stature  of  M.  Thiers  it  was  installed  once  again  in  the 
Chamber.  The  sweeping  toga  of  an  earlier  day 


368  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

seemed  to  have  been  cut  down  to  fit  the  frosty  little 
gentleman  in  spectacles,  and  from  his  new  rostrum 
he  delivered  interminable  disquisitions  upon  the  teach- 
ing of  history  and  the  errors  and  imperfections  of 
Imperial  policy.  But  in  spite  of  the  Liberal  aspira- 
tions of  the  Emperor's  letter,  France  was  not  yet  the 
mistress  of  its  own  destinies.  M.  Rouher  still 
governed  in  his  master's  name,  and  M.  Ollivier 
pointed  the  bitter  moral: 

'Les  attributions  du  ministere  d'etat  ont  du  s'accrottre 
demesurement;  I'avocat  des  ministres  est  d'abord  devenu 
leur  conseil,  puis  leur  directeur,  et  aujourd'hui  il  est,  non 
pas  comme  on  I'a  dit,  premier  ministre,  maire  du  palais 
ou  grand  vizir,  mais  un  Vice-Empereur  sans  responsabilite.' 

There  was  a  roar  in  the  Chamber;  and  the  Emperor 
replied  to  his  impulsive  adviser  with  a  gracious  letter 
to  Rouher  and  the  Grand  Cross  in  diamonds.  It 
was  a  strange  preparation  for  the  future. 

But  Paris  in  1867  was  not  conspicuously  interested 
in  the  future.  Students  of  foreign  policy  were 
vaguely  disquieted  by  the  sudden  emergence  of 
Prussia,  and  they  followed  anxiously  a  queer  negotia- 
tion about  Luxemburg  in  which  M.  de  Moustier, 
the  new  Foreign  Minister,  made  a  fresh  attempt  to 
secure  some  small  advantage  for  France  in  the  re- 
adjustment of  European  relations  which  followed 
Sadowa.  Prussia  had  absorbed  Hanover  and  one  of 
the  Hesses;  the  North  German  Confederation — 'a 
congress  of  roaches  presided  over  by  a  very  big  pike' 
— was  a  new  commonwealth  of  Germany  north  of  the 
Main  with  Berlin  for  its  capital ;  and  the  last  hope  of 
detaching  South  Germany  from  Bismarck's  combina- 
tion was  removed  by  his  publication  of  treaties  of 


THE  EMPEROR  369 

alliance  with  Bavaria,  Baden,  and  Wiirttemberg. 
French  jealousy  burned  bright,  and  the  directors  of 
French  policy  snatched  eagerly  at  any  chance  of  a 
set-off.  Luxemburg,  by  an  eccentric  complication  of 
past  treaties,  belonged  to  the  King  of  Holland,  and 
in  view  of  Bismarck's  notorious  appetite  for  outlying 
Duchies,  this  isolated  enclave  on  the  Franco-German 
frontier  was  regarded  by  cautious  persons  at  the 
Hague  as  an  embarrassing  casus  belli  with  Prussia. 
The  French  obligingly  offered  to  relieve  Holland  of 
the  Grand-Duchy,  and  the  Prince  of  Orange,  who 
was  a  familiar  figure  on  the  more  frivolous  side  of 
Parisian  life  under  the  less  impressive  appellation  of 
Prince  Citron,  notified  the  Emperor  of  his  father's 
consent.  Mr.  Disraeli  heard  of  the  offer  from  the 
Rothschilds,  and  there  was  a  nervous  flutter  of  'all 
the  cousins'  round  Windsor.  But  at  this  stage 
Prussia  intervened;  German  opinion  was  mobilised 
to  demonstrate  the  Teutonic  origin  of  Luxemburg, 
and  the  Franco-Dutch  transaction  was  sharply  in- 
terrupted. With  some  adroitness  Moustier  changed 
his  ground  and,  abandoning  his  claim  to  the  Grand- 
Duchy,  pressed  for  the  withdrawal  of  the  Prussian 
garrison.  There  was  an  uneasy  pause,  in  which 
French  agents  bought  remounts  in  Hungary  and 
Prussian  engineers  worked  by  torchlight  on  the  forts 
at  Luxemburg.  But  Austria  assumed  the  exhaust- 
ing functions  of  an  angel  of  peace;  the  soothing 
ministrations  of  diplomacy  were  invoked,  and  after 
a  four  days'  conference  'in  London  the  destinies  of 
Luxemburg  were  settled  by  a  treaty  which  dis- 
mantled the  fortress,  withdrew  the  Prussian  garrison, 
and  conferred  upon  the  Grand-Duchy  the  question- 
able blessings  of  neutrality. 
24 


370  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Whilst  French  policy  struggled  a  shade  inade- 
quately with  its  perennial  problem  to  porter  haut  le 
drapeau  de  la  Tfrance,  expert  opinion  was  gravely 
exercised  as  to  the  simpler  exigencies  of  national  de- 
fence. Sadowa  had  set  the  soldiers  thinking.  Man- 
power and  the  needle-gun  had  swept  the  Prussians  to 
victory;  and  although  the  French  infantry  was  to  be 
rearmed  with  the  excellent  Chassepot,  there  was  an 
uneasy  feeling  that  the  big  battalions  would  be  on 
the  German  side.  Prussia  had  adopted  a  system  of 
conscription  which  followed  the  formula  of  the  Folk 
in  Waff  en  and  brought  the  whole  population  to  the 
colours.  The  French,  with  a  more  limited  system 
which  permitted  the  purchase  of  substitutes,  had  a 
smaller  establishment  of  higher  quality;  there  was 
even  a  tendency  towards  professionalism,  and  the 
Empire  aligned  against  the  Prussian  masses  an  army 
which  had  seen  service  in  Italy,  Mexico,  the  Crimea 
and  approximated  more  nearly  to  the  long-service 
soldiers  of  Mr.  Cardwell  and  Queen  Victoria.  There 
was  a  hasty  movement  of  reform;  the  house-parties 
at  Compiegne  became  predominantly  military,  and 
the  soldiers  sat  in  committee  with  the  Emperor. 
Randon,  who  had  been  at  the  Ministry  of  War  since 
Magenta,  was  sceptical.  But  Trochu  was  voluble, 
and  Ducrot  sent  nervous  reports  from  Strasburg 
upon  the  movements  of  Prussian  agents  in  the 
frontier  provinces.  The  country  was  informed  that 
the  first-line  army  would  be  increased,  exemptions 
curtailed,  and  the  existing  forces  supplemented  by 
a  Garde  mobile  modelled  upon  the  Prussian  Land- 
wehr.  A  new  minister  came  to  the  War  Office;  and 
as  Marshal  Niel  was  settling  down  to  his  papers, 
Napoleon  stated  in  the  Chamber  that  a  nation's  in- 


THE  EMPEROR  371 

fluence  must  depend  upon  the  size  of  its  army.  It  was 
a  strange  termination  of  the  age  of  Congresses;  and 
when  General  Trochu  published  a  disturbing  pam- 
phlet on  L'Armee  franpaise  en  1867,  with  its  gloomy 
motto  from  Tacitus  and  its  dismal  prevision  that 
France  might  one  day  have  a  Benedek,  men  bought 
it  into  its  hundredth  edition  and  began  to  look 
nervously  towards  the  eastern  frontier. 

But  Paris  in  1867  had  more  immediate  interests. 
Once  again  the  Empire  fell  back  upon  the  simple 
expedient  of  government  by  Exhibition,  and  the 
crowds  stood  in  the  Champ  de  Mars  to  see  the 
miracles  of  science — the  steam  locomotives,  the  mar- 
vellous featherweight  metal  aluminium,  and  the  new 
American  rocking-chair.  Paris  once  more  became 
the  capital  of  Europe;  and  anxious  couriers  pro- 
pelled their  charges  through  the  staring  crowds, 
whilst  stupid  foreigners  talked  broken  French  and 
the  provincials  fumbled  with  their  purses.  In  the 
Exhibition  there  was  a  baroque  profusion  of  kiosks, 
of  gleaming  show-cases,  of  strange,  insistent  sales- 
men, and  young  ladies  who  waited  upon  their 
customers  in  the  outlandish  costumes  of  their  own 
countries.  Missionary  societies  amused  an  en- 
lightened public  with  trophies  of  heathen  weapons, 
and  Herr  Friedrich  Krupp  of  Essen  exhibited  a 
great  gun  which  showed  its  black  muzzle  to  the 
French  and  won  a  prize.  The  whole  city  was  a 
lodging-house,  and  its  lodgers  swung  gaily  into  the 
Parisian  dance.  In  the  day  one  tramped  the  Exhibi- 
tion open-mouthed,  and  at  night  one  sat  in  the  stalls 
to  hear  Carvalho  sing  Juliet  in  M.  Gounod's  new 
opera  or  to  see  Ristori  as  Queen  Elizabeth,  or  (best 
of  all)  one  nodded  a  responsive  head  at  the  Alcazar 


372  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

to  the  lilt  of  Theresa's  C'est  dans  I'nez  quca  me 
chatouille  or  raised  an  eyebrow  at  her  deep-voiced, 
her  classical  insistence  that  Rien  n'est  sacre  pour  un 
sapeur,  which  had  inspired  Cham  to  retort  with  a 
picture  of  scandalised  Engineers  ejaculating  Rien 
n'est  sacre  pour  Theresa.  Paris  had  gone  mad  for 
the  divine  Patti  when  she  sang  Lucia  and  Son- 
nambula;  but  the  authentic  Muse  of  the  Second 
Empire  was  Theresa. 

It  seemed  in  1867  that  the  whole  Empire  had  been 
set  to  music;  and  the  maestro  was  a  tall,  lean-faced 
man  with  drooping  whiskers  and  perpetual  pince-nez 
who  had  come  out  of  a  synagogue  choir  at  Cologne 
and  was  named  Offenbach.  He  drifted  from  serious 
composition  to  ballet-music  (with  Taglioni  to 
arrange  his  dances) ,  and  then  in  the  great  days  of  the 
Empire  opera  bouffe  found  its  master.  Orphee  aux 
Enfers  had  set  all  Paris  humming;  and  as  Bazaine's 
officers  rode  down  to  the  hot,  blue  sea  at  Vera  Cruz, 
their  vision  of  home  was  Paris  and  a  box  for  la  Belle 
Helene.  The  armies  of  the  Second  Empire  went  into 
action  to  an  air  of  Offenbach,  and  his  leading  lady 
was  a  national,  almost  a  European  figure.  In  the 
year  of  the  Exhibition  he  gave  her  royal  rank;  and 
when  Hortense  Schneider  played  la  Grande- 
Duchesse  de  Gerolstein,  it  was  an  international  event. 
The  librettists  pointed  fingers  of  French  derision  at  a 
minor  German  state;  and  when  the  whole  Almanack 
de  Gotha  came  to  Paris  to  see  the  Exhibition,  she 
played,  like  Talma  at  Erfurt,  to  a  parterre  de  rois 
her  travesty  of  German  royalty.  It  was  the  last 
joke  of  the  Empire;  and  since  the  Empire  was  to  fall 
so  soon  under  German  guns,  it  tasted  a  little  bitter  in 
the  mouth. 


THE  EMPEROR  373 

In  the  last  years  of  the  Empire  the  little  figures  of 
Parisian  gaiety  jigged  on  a  broad  and  lighted  stage. 
The  scene,  lit  by  the  flaring  gas-jets  of  the  Second 
Empire,  was  set  by  the  tall  buildings  of  M.  Hauss- 
mann's  avenues;  and  as  the  maestro  Offenbach  drew 
a  tinkling  melody  from  the  orchestra,  one  seems  to 
see  them  simpering  prettily  in  their  great  skirts  and 
their  little  hats,  the  lost  anonymas  of  the  Second 
Empire.  They  crossed  the  stage  to  a  lively  air,  as 
young  M.  Rochefort  fought  his  duel  with  Prince 
Achille  Murat  and  the  cocodes  settled  their  great 
cuffs  into  place — Cora  Pearl,  the  Englishwoman, 
with  her  fair  curls  (she  once  played  Cupid  in 
Orphee),  Mogador,  Nana  herself  with  her  scarlet 
liveries  and  her  pair  of  Russian  trotters,  and 
Marguerite  Bellanger  whom  an  extensive  public 
knew  as  Margot  la  Rigoleuse  before  discreet  equer- 
ries transported  her  to  Vichy  and  Biarritz,  where  a 
Cher  Seigneur  was  waiting  and  grave  officials  laid 
before  an  Emperor  the  letters  of  his  Marguerite. 
'Pourtant'  as  Fleury  said,  fnous  nous  sommes 
diablement  bien  amuses/  The  Empire  in  1867 
seemed  to  centre  in  Paris,  and  Paris  in  the  year  of 
the  Exhibition  was  at  its  most  Parisian. 

But  there  was  a  flutter  of  haute  politique  in  the 
streets  when  the  kings  of  Europe  drove  by  to  see  the 
show.  A  Swede,  a  Jap,  a  Czar,  a  Prince  of  Wales,  a 
Sultan  in  his  fez  went  past  at  the  salute,  and  the 
Emperor  seemed  always  to  be  waiting  in  uniform  at 
the  station  to  meet  a  royal  train.  King  William  came 
from  Berlin  with  his  strapping  Chancellor  in  Land- 
wehr  uniform,  and  Bismarck  sat  laughing  at  the 
Grande-Duchesse.  One  day  in  the  summer  (there 
had  been  bad  news  from  Mexico  by  the  new  Ameri- 


374  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

can  cable)  the  Emperor  sat  by  the  Sultan  of  Turkey 
to  award  the  prizes;  there  was  a  silence  as  he  made 
his  speech,  because  it  was  known  in  Paris  that  Maxi- 
milian was  lying  shot  at  Queretaro.  But  the  greatest 
day  in  the  year  was  a  June  afternoon  when  the 
crowds  stood  in  the  sunshine  at  Longchamps  and  the 
Emperor  sat  his  horse  with  the  Czar  and  the  King 
of  Prussia  to  watch  Marshal  Canrobert  take  the 
troops  by  at  the  salute.  It  was  the  last  pageant  of 
the  Empire,  and  it  passed  with  a  gleam  of  helmets 
and  the  flicker  of  sunlight  on  fixed  bayonets.  The 
shakoes  of  the  infantry  went  by  and  the  green 
Chasseurs  and  the  great  drum-majors  and  the  little 
vivandieres  in  their  bright  petticoats.  There  was  a 
great  stream  of  red  and  blue  as  the  Zouaves  swung 
past,  and  then  the  cavalry  went  jingling  by — the 
Guides  in  green  and  gold,  the  Lancers  in  their 
schapskas  with  a  flutter  of  pennons,  and  the  tall 
helmets  of  the  heavy  cavalry  who  were  to  pound  so 
soon  across  the  hills  at  Mars-la-Tour  and  down  into 
the  hollow  at  Reichshoffen.  The  little  brass  guns 
went  clanking  past  behind  their  gun-teams,  and  the 
Emperor  sat  in  the  sunshine  with  his  great  moustache 
between  the  tall  Czar  and  the  narrow  eyes  of  Prussia. 
As  the  sun  dropped  towards  the  west,  they  drove 
back  into  Paris,  and  a  Polish  boy  snapped  a  pistol  at 
the  Emperor  of  Russia.  The  troops  marched  off 
through  the  June  dust,  and  Longchamps  had  seen  in 
the  blaze  and  jingle  of  the  great  review  the  Indian 
summer  of  the  Empire. 


XVII 

As  the  shouting  died  away  and  the  last  flags  hung 
limply  on  the  autumn  air  in  the  Exhibition  grounds, 
Napoleon  was  left  alone  again  with  his  problems. 
Paris  and  the  younger  generation  were  palpably 
hostile  to  the  Empire;  and  new  pieces  with  astound- 
ing moves  were  beginning  to  appear  on  the  European 
chess-board.  The  old  gambits  had  lost  something 
of  their  value.  The  game  was  ending,  and  the 
Emperor  seemed  to  fumble  a  little  with  the  pieces. 
His  health  had  recovered  partly  from  the  breakdown 
of  1866;  but  he  remained  an  aging  man,  and  he  was 
too  often  in  pain  to  command  a  clear  eye  and  a 
steady  hand. 

The  most  pressing  of  his  problems  was  the  balance 
of  European  power.  Bismarck  had  tilted  the  scale 
sharply,  and  French  policy  had  found  no  means  to 
redress  it.  There  was  something  a  little  sinister  in 
the  silent  progress  of  Prussia.  The  light  was  failing ; 
and  through  the  gathering  dusk  the  North  German 
Confederation,  to  the  imagination  of  Sir  Robert 
Morier,  'looms  out  like  some  huge  ironclad  from 
which  no  sounds  are  heard  but  the  tramp  of  men  at 
drill,  or  the  swinging  upon  their  pivots  of  monster 
guns.'  It  was  an  uneasy  spectacle  for  an  Emperor 
without  allies ;  and  as  it  slowly  took  shape  in  the  mist, 
he  seemed  to  stare  a  little  helplessly.  Foreign 
politics  had  been  like  a  bad  dream  since  1866 ;  he  had 

375 


376  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

waved  his  wand  and  made  his  passes ;  but  nothing  had 
happened  and  his  public  was  growing  impatient.  The 
centre  of  European  gravity  was  shifting  to  Berlin. 
Napoleon  still  looked  enigmatic  and  made  significant 
speeches;  but  he  no  longer  held  the  centre  of  the 
stage.  Once  a  respectful  Continent  had  watched  the 
Tuileries  to  guess  its  future;  now  it  looked  further 
east,  where  something  seemed  crouching  in  the 
shadows. 

It  was  an  obvious  resource  for  France  to  seek 
alliances,  and  Austria  seemed  the  natural  counter- 
poise to  the  new  power  of  Germany.  A  queer  irony 
sent  Napoleon  to  make  advances  to  Franz- Joseph; 
ten  years  of  French  policy  had  stripped  him  of  his 
Italian  dominions,  and  Magenta,  Solferino,  the 
French  bayonets  which  had  captured  Milan,  and  the 
French  hint  which  had  sent  the  Italians  into  Venice 
seemed  an  odd  prelude  for  the  new  friendship.  But 
the  two  Empires  drew  together,  like  tall  ships  under 
a  stormy  sky;  they  had  need  of  one  another,  and 
statesmen  in  difficulties  have  short  memories.  One 
could  change  partners  in  the  European  dance  with 
astonishing  rapidity,  and  Austria  might  care  to  take 
the  floor  with  France.  It  would  be  a  brave  repartee 
to  Prussia  to  set  up  once  more  the  old  Austro-French 
alliance  which  had  taken  the  field  against  Frederick 
the  Great  in  the  Seven  Years'  War;  and  the  agile 
Count  von  Beust,  who  had  migrated  from  Dresden 
to  Vienna  and  entered  Austrian  politics  from  the  top 
as  Chancellor,  seemed  just  the  man  (had  he  not 
brought  Saxony  into  the  war  against  Prussia  in 
1866?)  to  take  the  new,  the  daring  turning.  No 
royalty  from  Vienna  had  visited  the  Exhibition,  since 
a  Mexican  firing-party  at  Queretaro  had  put  the 


THE  EMPEROR  377 

Court  in  mourning.  But  at  the  turn  of  the  year 
Napoleon  and  Eugenie  left  France  with  elaborate 
informality  for  a  private  visit  to  Franz-Joseph.  As 
the  train  wound  through  South  Germany,  the  kings 
stood  bowing  in  their  stations;  and  at  Augsburg  in 
Bavaria  the  Emperor  showed  Eugenie  his  school,  his 
mother's  house,  and  the  old  streets  where  a  German 
schoolboy  had  once  learnt  to  be  Emperor  of  the 
French.  At  the  Austrian  frontier  the  royal  train 
steamed  into  Salzburg,  and  Napoleon  met  on  the 
platform  the  tall  young  man  whom  he  had  last  seen 
on  the  white  road  to  Villafranca  in  1859.  There  were 
five  days  of  courtesy,  of  drives  and  visits;  and  one 
evening  a  thoughtful  Court  assisted  nature  to  be 
picturesque  by  lighting  bonfires  on  the  hills.  Whilst 
Eugenie  dressed  quietly  and  sat  with  her  queer, 
vivacious  hostess,  the  two  Emperors  talked  politics. 
M.  de  Gramont,  from  the  embassy  at  Vienna,  was 
full  of  plans.  But  Beust  was  cautious  and  Napoleon 
was  not,  was  never  in  a  hurry.  II  ne  faut  rien 
brusquer;  and  the  visit  closed  upon  a  note  of  peaceful 
friendship.  The  Emperor  took  the  train  again  to 
France;  and  as  it  stopped  at  Lille,  he  seemed  a  little 
anxious.  His  speech  said  something  of  the  past  glam- 
our of  the  Empire — 'J'entrevoycds  pour  noire  patrie 
une  nouvelle  ere  de  grandeur  et  de  prosperity — then, 
with  a  sudden  drop  to  the  minor  key,  he  peered  un- 
certainly into  the  future :  'des  points  noirs  sont  venus 
assombrir  noire  horizon.  De  meme  que  la  bonne 
fortune  ne  m'a  point  eblom,  de  meme  des  revers 
passagers  ne  me  decourageront  pas.'  It  was  an  odd 
confession ;  Napoleon  was  a  silent  man,  but  he  seemed 
for  once  to  be  thinking  aloud.  His  courtesy  to 
Franz-Joseph  was  returned  a  few  weeks  later,  when 


378  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

the  Austrian  Emperor  visited  him  at  Paris.  The 
streets  were  crowded;  and  the  young  man,  whom 
defeat  and  bereavement  had  rendered  interesting, 
was  well  received.  The  diplomats  took  up  the  work 
of  friendship ;  and  for  a  year  or  more,  as  M.  Rouher 
dabbled  in  haute  politique  and  M.  de  Gramont 
strolled  over  to  the  Ballplatz  to  talk  ' academique- 
ment'  to  Count  von  Beust  about  a  European  war, 
the  correspondence  trailed  on.  Drafts  passed  from 
hand  to  hand;  solemn  gentlemen  exchanged  signifi- 
cant nods;  the  atmosphere  was  highly  confidential, 
and  there  were  'echanges  d'idees  et  de  pro  jets' 
between  Paris  and  Vienna.  How  much,  how  little 
had  been  said  came  later  into  controversy.  But, 
although  the  bright  perspective  of  alliance  kindled 
the  warm  imagination  of  M.  de  Gramont,  nothing 
was  signed.  There  was  a  vague  contact  of  the  two 
Empires;  but  Austria,  to  an  experienced  eye, 
belonged  'to  the  mollusc  category,'  and  Napoleon's 
initiative  was  little  more  than  a  tired  gesture.  There 
was  no  treaty,  and  even  the  letters  provided  for  little 
beyond  co-operation  in  diplomacy.  An  Austrian 
army  corps  in  Bohemia  might  one  day  save  the 
French;  but  even  M.  Rouher  might  well  doubt 
whether  the  same  results  would  attend  an  Austrian 
Note.  The  Emperor  had  gone  to  Salzburg  in  search 
of  an  ally;  he  had  found  only  a  neutral. 

His  natural  allies  were  in  Italy,  which  was  the 
creation  of  his  policy.  But  gratitude  is  an  unusual 
sentiment  in  statesmen;  and  Italy,  with  Venice  and 
Milan,  had  little  more  to  hope  from  the  French  alli- 
ance. An  offer  of  the  Trentino  went  to  Florence 
with  a  draft  treaty  of  alliance.  But  the  long  fatality 
of  the  Roman  question  had  estranged  the  two 


THE  EMPEROR  379 

countries,  and  at  the  moment  when  France  most 
needed  Italian  friendship,  it  rose  once  more  between 
them.  For  a  few  months  in  1867,  when  the  Italians 
undertook  to  guard  the  Pope's  territory  and  the  last 
French  sentries  sailed  for  home,  it  had  seemed  to 
pass  away.  But  before  the  year  was  out,  Garibaldi 
was  on  the  move  again.  That  incorrigible  liberator, 
whom  Italian  guns  had  already  turned  back  from 
Rome  at  Aspromonte  in  1862,  took  the  road  once 
more  by  way  of  a  Peace  Congress  at  Geneva  attended 
principally  by  belligerent  revolutionaries,  who  waved 
their  international  olive-branches  a  shade  ferociously. 
There  was  a  nervous  flutter  in  Italy,  and  the  Legion 
began  to  filter  into  the  Papal  States  under  the  eyes 
of  grinning  Piedmontese  police.  There  was  a 
crackle  of  musketry ;  and  the  PapaLini  fell  back  fight- 
ing on  the  city,  whilst  France  sent  Italy  a  sharp 
reminder  of  her  duty  to  protect  the  Pope.  The 
Italians  wrung  their  hands,  regretted,  condoled, 
apologised,  explained.  But  the  Garibaldians  moved 
slowly  on,  and  France  was  insistent.  An  expedi- 
tionary force  was  concentrated  at  Toulon  and  sent 
the  Emperor's  mind  back  to  the  distant  days  when 
a  President  sat  at  the  Elysee  and  General  Oudinot 
marched  slowly  up  the  road  to  Rome.  Garibaldi 
slipped  out  of  Caprera  to  take  the  field  against  the 
Pope,  and  the  Zouaves  were  marching  down  to  the 
transports  as  Napoleon  struggled  with  his  doubts. 
Orders  to  Toulon  went  and  were  recalled.  But  the 
fleet  sailed  at  last,  as  the  arms  of  the  semaphores 
flapped  out  the  last  hesitations  of  the  Government 
from  the  coast-guard  stations  of  Provence ;  and  in  the 
last  weeks  of  October  the  French  were  back  in  Rome. 
They  marched  out  by  the  Porta  Pia  before  dawn,  and 


380  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

at  Mentana  on  a  Sunday  they  found  Garibaldi  and 
his  men.  The  Legion  was  broken  in  a  running  fight, 
and  General  de  Failly,  proud  of  his  new  rifles,  re- 
ported to  Paris  in  words  which  were  never  forgiven 
in  Italy: 

'Lea  fusils  Chassepot  out  fait  merveille.' 

The  Pope  was  saved;  but  France  had  saved  him  by 
Italian  casualties,  and  Italy  was  less  than  ever  likely 
to  ally  herself  with  the  Emperor.  M.  Rouher  struck 
an  attitude  in  the  Chamber  and  announced  in  his 
big  voice,  fau  nom  du  gouvernement  francais,  FItalie 
ne  s'emparera  pas  de  Rome!  Jamais,  jamais  la 
France  ne  supportera  cette  violence  a  son  honneur  et  a 
la  catholicite/  His  sovereign  gently  remarked,  'En 
politique,  il  ne  faut  jamais  dire  "Jamais" ' ;  and  the 
advice,  for  an  Empire  without  allies,  was  wise. 
Finality  could  hardly  be  attained  in  French  policy 
at  a  time  when  the  first  impression  of  a  new  ambas- 
sador from  London  was  that  Napoleon  had  'reigned 
eighteen  years,  and  they  were  getting  tired  of  so  much 
of  the  same  thing  and  want  novelty.' 

One  other  event  in  foreign  politics  had  its  influence 
upon  the  Empire.  Spanish  affairs  under  Queen 
Isabella  had  passed  through  rapid  alternations 
of  stagnation  and  comic  opera.  Public  life  was 
crowded  with  fierce  military  gentlemen  who  clanked 
into  office  and  out  again  with  bewildering  rapidity, 
and  the  combined  efforts  of  the  entire  corps  of 
generals  had  reduced  the  national  finances  to  the  con- 
dition which  induced  Lord  Macaulay  to  observe  to 
his  banker:  'Active  Spanish  Bonds  profess  to  pay 
interest  now,  and  do  not.  Deferred  Spanish  Bonds 
profess  to  pay  interest  at  some  future  time,  and  will 


THE  EMPEROR  381 

not.  Passive  Spanish  Bonds  profess  to  pay  interest 
neither  now,  nor  at  any  future  time.  I  think  that 
you  might  buy  a  large  amount  of  Passive  Spanish 
Bonds  for  a  very  small  sum.'  A  pronunciamiento 
of  artillery  sergeants  was  followed  by  a  pronuncia- 
miento of  sailors  at  Cadiz ;  shiploads  of  generals  went 
into  exile  and  returned  with  enlightened  views;  and 
gradually,  in  the  later  years  of  the  Second  Empire, 
the  country  drifted  towards  unanimity.  The  Queen's 
ministers  had  succeeded  in  uniting  Spanish  opinion; 
but  unfortunately  they  had  united  it  against  the 
Queen.  In  the  late  summer  of  1868  her  villeggiatura 
at  San  Sebastian  was  interrupted  by  four  separate 
pronunciamientos;  she  looked  wildly  round  the  great 
curve  of  the  bay  and  scuttled  across  the  bridge  at 
Irun  into  France,  leaving  a  debt  of  fourteen  millions 
and  a  cash  balance  in  the  Treasury  of  something 
under  five  shillings.  One  more  ruler  of  Spain  and 
the  Indies  had  justified  Lord  Clarendon's  gloomy 
diagnosis:  'Spanish  dynasties  go  and  come;  Spanish 
kings  and  queens  go  and  come;  and  Spanish  ministers 
go  and  come;  but  there  is  one  thing  in  Spain  that  is 
always  the  same — they  never  answer  letters.'  The 
Queen  passed  the  frontier,  and  the  little  houses  of  St. 
Jean  de  Luz  slid  by  her  carriage  window.  The  Em- 
peror was  at  Biarritz  for  the  autumn,  and  he  had  the 
courtesy  to  come  to  the  station  as  her  train  went 
through.  There  was  a  vacancy  for  the  throne  of 
Spain;  and  before  it  was  filled,  it  had  made  a  gap  at 
the  Tuileries. 

In  his  own  country  the  Emperor  watched  the  half- 
hearted execution  of  the  programme  of  1867.  Whilst 
his  concessions  to  democracy  were  imposed  upon  a 
suspicious  public  by  sceptical  ministers,  army  reform 


382  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

was  gravely  debated  in  the  Chamber,  and  Count  von 
Moltke  was  reported  to  be  interesting  himself  in  the 
geography  of  the  eastern  frontier.  But  French  opin- 
ion was  gratified  by  the  devastating  possibilities  of 
the  mitrailleuse,  and  Marshal  Niel's  proposals  were 
steadily  reduced  in  effectiveness  by  an  Opposition 
which  never  hesitated  to  reproach  the  Emperor  for 
supineness  in  face  of  Prussia  but  declined,  with  that 
levity  which  is  the  privilege  of  Oppositions,  to  pro- 
vide him  with  the  means  of  action.  Colonel  S  toff  el 
reported  voluminously  from  the  embassy  at  Berlin 
upon  the  growing  efficiency  of  the  Prussian  service; 
the  French  field-gun  was  outranged,  the  most  careful 
attention  was  being  given  to  musketry,  and  even  the 
Court  circular  showed  how  assiduously  the  elderly 
King  devoted  himself  to  his  army.  The  tactful  attache 
alluded  cautiously  to  the  manifest  superiority  of  the 
Prussian  higher  command;  apart  from  the  genius  of 
Count  von  Moltke,  a  Staff  College  presided  over  the 
education  of  his  officers  in  that  art  of  war  which  had 
lately  become  so  complex.  Railways  and  rifles  and 
steel  artillery  were  making  European  warfare  into 
something  beyond  the  comprehension  of  dashing 
French  colonels  in  tight  uniforms,  and  it  was  no 
longer  enough  for  a  successful  soldier  to  combine  a 
knowledge  of  the  names  of  Napoleonic  victories  with 
the  display  of  personal  courage  in  the  hinterland  of 
Algeria. 

The  Liberal  promises  of  1867  were  gingerly  ful- 
filled by  M.  Rouher.  Whilst  the  public  crowded  to 
hear  Christine  Nilsson  as  Ophelia,  cautious  legislators 
conferred  upon  it  the  privilege  of  meeting  to  discuss 
unpolitical  questions  and  even  (with  official  permis- 
sion) to  talk  politics.  The  law  of  press-offences  was 


THE  EMPEROR  383 

reformed,  and  there  was  a  queer  revival  of  public  life 
in  France.  The  sudden  resumption  of  activity  was 
almost  convulsive.  Once  more,  after  the  long 
silence  of  the  Empire,  public  speakers  began  to  ges- 
ticulate to  public  meetings,  and  journalists  wrote 
almost  what  they  thought.  The  strait-waistcoat  of 
1852  had  been  relaxed,  and  the  Empress,  whom  half 
Paris  regarded  as  an  agent  of  reaction,  was  devoting 
herself  to  the  harmless  pursuit  of  charity  and  the 
posthumous  reinstatement  of  Lesurques  after  the 
long  martyrdom  of  his  tragic  confusion  with  Dubosc, 
who  robbed  the  Lyons  mail  in  his  own  person  and 
fascinated  a  generation  of  British  playgoers  in  some- 
one else's.  But  there  was  little  gratitude  in  France 
for  the  new  liberty.  The  Emperor  drafted  news- 
paper articles  in  which  the  country  was  to  be  in- 
formed, with  a  desperate  homoeopathy,  of  its  continued 
devotion  to  his  person,  to  'la  bienveillance  extreme  du 
chef  de  l'~&tat,  sa  modestie  et  sa  simplicity  in  spite  of 
the  imperfections  of  his  domineering  subordinates; 
there  was  a  queer  admission  that  'I'Empereur  est  reste 
aussi  populaire  quit  y  a  quinze  ans,  tandis  que  son 
gouvernement  ne  Vest  pas'  He  even  interrupted  his 
journalism  to  sketch  the  scenario  of  a  novel  in  which 
an  intelligent  traveller  returned  to  France  in  1868 
and  wandered  open-mouthed  through  the  rich  per- 
spective of  the  Empire — ironclads  at  Brest  ('I'inven- 
tion  de  I'Empereur.  Revetus  de  fer,  Us  sont  a  I'abri 
du  boulet,  et  cette  transformation  a  detruit  jusqu'a  un 
certain  point  la  suprematie.sur  mer  de  VAngleterre') , 
railways,  electric  telegraphs,  low  prices  and  Free 
Trade,  a  country  at  peace,  and  all  the  beneficent 
apparatus  of  a  modern  state.  But  French  opinion 
was  restive  and  unimpressed.  Paris  seemed  to  want 


384  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

a  new  toy,  and  Lamartine  might  have  said  once  more 
'la  France  s'ennuie? 

The  uneasy  temper  of  1868  reacted  upon  a  cheerful 
and  crowded  Opposition.  Little  remained  of  the 
Five  of  1857;  M.  Darimon  was  seen  now  at  official 
receptions,  M.  £mile  Ollivier  was  under  grave  sus- 
picion of  having  permitted  his  reasonableness  to 
outrun  his  logic,  and  only  M.  Jules  Favre  seemed  to 
survive,  with  the  gift  of  peevish  invective  which  had 
delighted  French  audiences  for  twenty  years  and  an 
appearance  which  came  increasingly  to  suggest  an 
unsuccessful  impersonation  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  But 
M.  Thiers  had  returned  to  the  stage  and  was  forget- 
ting his  Orleanism  in  the  enjoyment  of  eliciting 
republican  cheers  by  the  measured  enumeration  of 
someone  else's  mistakes;  and  gradually  the  sedate 
republicans  of  the  early  Empire  were  reinforced,  were 
superseded  by  a  younger,  more  violent  generation. 
M.  Ollivier's  young  friends  at  the  Bar  forsook  him  as 
his  views  assumed  the  fatal  caution  of  middle  age; 
and  since  the  claims  of  clients  had  not  yet  absorbed 
their  leisure,  they  were  always  available  to  speak  at 
meetings  or  to  cheer  in  the  Chamber,  to  write  for  the 
papers  or  to  publish  pamphlets.  One  voice  seemed 
even  then  to  carry  above  the  rest,  where  the  southern 
verve  of  Numa  Roumestan  sent  Leon  Gambetta  rock- 
eting volubly  across  the  Parisian  scene.  But  there 
were  grave  elements  in  the  Opposition;  successive 
amnesties  had  released  the  exiles  of  1852,  and  they 
returned  to  France  with  all  the  memories  of  the 
Second  Republic  and  all  the  bitterness  of  the  coup 
d'etat.  There  was  even  a  recrudescence  of  the  old 
ideal  of  the  social  revolution,  of  the  Republique 
sociale  which  Cavaignac  had  blown  off  the  Paris 


THE  EMPEROR  385 

streets  in  the  June  days  of  1848.  Working-class 
opinion  had  been  gratified  by  the  condescension  of  the 
Prince-President's  early  writings  on  I'Extinction  du 
Pauperisme.  But  gradually,  as  the  development  of 
industrialism  under  the  Second  Empire  huddled  the 
workers  in  the  large  towns,  it  was  attracted  by 
Proudhon's  more  vigorous  enunciation  of  the  prin- 
ciple La  propriete  cest  le  vol.  The  system  of  Karl 
Marx  was  largely  unreadable  and  mostly  unread ;  but 
a  dangerous  contact  with  the  revolutionary  movements 
of  Europe  was  established  by  the  well-intentioned 
institution  of  the  Internationale.  Designed  by  a 
modest  group  of  Parisian  trade  unionists  to  secure  the 
co-operation  of  organized  labour  in  all  countries,  it 
was  assailed  in  France  with  the  embarrassing  atten- 
tions of  more  experienced  agitators,  who  seemed 
anxious  to  embellish  its  drab  economic  programme 
with  the  more  vivid  attractions  of  republicanism, 
irreligion,  free  love,  and  Nihilism.  Their  harmless  ex- 
cursions to  pass  resolutions  at  international  confer- 
ences brought  the  delegates  of  the  Internationale  in 
contact  with  the  main  stream  of  European  revolution, 
and  those  simple-minded  exponents  of  working-class 
solidarity  were  soon  to  be  found  murmuring  the  deep- 
chested  incantations  of  insurrection  in  unison  with  the 
fuller  voices  of  Mazzini,  Garibaldi,  and  Bakunin. 
French  opinion  in  the  industrial  areas  was  rapidly 
affected  by  the  strange  contagion,  and  one  more 
ingredient  was  added  to  the  effervescence  of  Paris. 

There  was  a  surge  of  journalism  as  the  restrictions 
came  off,  and  anxious  gentlemen  sat  at  the  Ministry 
of  the  Interior  scanning  the  new  publications  for 
signs  of  lese-majeste.  Their  quest  was  amply  satisfied 
in  the  summer  of  1868  when  M.  Rochefort,  who  had 
25 


386  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

made  something  of  a  reputation  for  seditious  in- 
nuendo in  the  newspapers,  brought  out  a  paper  in  a 
bright  red  cover  and  called  it  La  Lanterne.  He  was 
a  remarkable  young  man  with  black  hair  and  a 
piercing  eye;  his  gifts  combined  a  rare  genius  for 
burlesque  with  that  verbal  felicity  which  can  main- 
tain a  steady  flow  of  witticisms;  and  he  had  not  yet 
discovered  his  total  incapacity  for  living  contentedly 
under  any  form  of  government  whatever.  The  bland 
impertinence  of  his  first  number,  of  which  he  hoped 
to  sell  four  thousand  copies,  brought  him  a  circula- 
tion of  one  hundred  thousand,  and  his  malice  set  Paris 
tittering  every  Saturday.  Sheets  of  the  same  type 
had  circulated  furtively  in  Madrid  under  the  late 
dynasty.  The  note  was  struck  in  his  opening  sen- 
tence— (La  France  contient,  dit  Z'Almanach  imperial, 
trente-six  millions  de  sujets,  sans  compter  les  sujets 
de  mecontentemenf — and  he  ran  easily  through  every 
tone  of  derision  from  irony  to  abuse.  The  ways  of 
ministers,  the  Empress  and  her  crinolines,  the  Em- 
peror and  his  dog  made  a  weekly  appearance  in  his 
sardonic  revue;  the  accomplishments  of  Queen  Hor- 
tense  and  the  paternity  of  her  son,  the  dialectic  of 
M.  Rouher,  the  antics  of  the  police,  the  stale  flavour 
of  old  scandals  about  Mexico,  and  the  whole  under- 
side of  the  Imperial  scene  were  M.  Rochefort's  stock- 
in-trade.  But  he  was  at  his  best  in  passages  of  sus- 
tained irony: 

'Comme  bonapartiste,  je  prefere  Napoleon  II.  .  .  .  Per- 
sonne  ne  niera  qu'il  ait  occupe  le  trone,  puisque  son  succes- 
seur  s'appelle  Napoleon  III.  Quel  regne!  mes  amis, 
quel  regne!  Pas  une  contribution;  pas  de  guerres  inutile.? 
avec  les  decimes  qui  s'ensuivent;  pas  de  ces  expeditions 
lointaines  dans  lesquelles  on  depense  six  cents  millions  pour 


THE  EMPEROR  387 

oiler  reclamer  quinze  francs,  pas  de  listes  civiles  devorantes, 
pas  de  ministres  cumulant  chacun  cinq  ou  six  fonctions 
a  cent  mills  francs  piece;  voila  bien  le  monarque  tel  que 
je  le  comprends.  Oh!  out,  Napoleon  II.  je  t'aime  et  je 
t'admire  sans  reserve.  .  .  .' 

The  public  reputation  of  French  institutions,  which 
depended  under  the  Empire  upon  a  romantic  venera- 
tion, is  peculiarly  susceptible  to  ridicule.  Humour 
is  an  innocuous  weapon  in  British  politics;  but  in 
the  more  sensitive  Parisian  milieu,  in  which  the 
Lanterne  circulated,  it  produced  a  serious  influence 
upon  the  prestige  of  the  Empire.  M.  Pinard,  who 
had  conducted  the  prosecution  of  M.  Flaubert  for 
the  improprieties  of  Madame  Bovary,  was  at  the 
Ministry  of  the  Interior,  and  his  sense  of  humour  was 
unequal  to  M.  Rochefort's  scurrility.  He  displayed 
a  laudable  activity  in  persecuting  the  exasperating 
pamphlet;  and  the  intemperate  little  paper,  which 
blushed  scarlet  in  every  suburban  railway-carriage 
on  Saturdays  in  1868  and  lay  in  heaps  along  the 
boulevards  like  the  autumn  leaves  of  the  Empire,  was 
suppressed  after  eleven  issues.  Whilst  his  facetiae 
were  gravely  investigated  by  a  court  of  law,  Roche- 
fort  escaped  to  Belgium  and  settled  down  in  the 
congenial  company  of  Victor  Hugo  to  lampoon  the 
Empire  from  beyond  the  frontier.  The  Lanterne 
continued  to  be  printed  in  Brussels,  but  its  sole  con- 
tributor dated  occasional  issues  from  towns  in  Eng- 
land, Holland  and  even  Prussia  (which  he  did  not 
visit)  out  of  consideration -for  the  responsibilities  of 
the  Belgian  Government  to  its  neighbours.  The 
tone  of  his  invective  became  progressively  more  vio- 
lent, and  every  artifice  of  comic  opera  was  adopted 
through  the  ,year  1869  to  introduce  copies  of  the 


388  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Lanterne  into  France.  The  paper  was  printed  on  a 
reduced  scale  and  posted  to  its  subscribers  in  envel- 
opes; a  consignment  of  fifteen  plaster  busts  of  the 
Emperor  was  found  to  contain  a  whole  edition — six 
copies  in  each  epaulette  and  seven  inside  the  Grand 
Cordon  of  the  Legion  of  Honour;  and  an  antique 
picture-frame  was  filled  with  sedition  and  despatched 
to  an  art-dealer  in  Paris.  The  success  of  the  Lanterne 
came  to  depend  less  upon  its  contents,  which  were  a 
trifle  monotonous,  than  upon  the  pleasing  mystery 
of  its  distribution.  Even  the  dullest  paper  becomes 
interesting,  if  it  is  delivered  at  the  house  by  smugglers. 
Its  author,  who  had  never  cultivated  anonymity, 
gradually  became  a  popular  figure,  and  at  a  by- 
election  in  1869,  M.  Rochefort  was  returned  to  the 
Chamber  by  a  working-class  constituency  of  Paris: 
it  was  a  strange  symptom. 

French  opinion,  in  the  malaise  which  had  prevailed 
in  public  life  since  1866,  was  becoming  profoundly 
sceptical  as  to  the  Empire,  and  the  doubts  in  the 
public  mind  were  expressed  in  a  critical  examination 
of  its  tradition  and  its  origins.  The  sanctity  of  the 
First  Empire  had  been  an  axiom  of  the  reign  of 
Napoleon  III. ;  but  M.  Lanfrey's  handling  of  the  sub- 
ject showed  a  strange  departure  from  the  reverent 
attitude  of  earlier  writers,  and  the  indivisible  collab- 
oration of  MM.  Erckmann  and  Chatrian  displayed  a 
scandalous  indifference  to  the  fascinations  of  senti- 
mental militarism.  The  Emperor's  own  antecedents 
were  exposed  to  still  more  searching  criticism,  and 
the  shrill  abuse  of  M.  Rochefort  was  supplemented  by 
a  revival  of  public  interest  in  the  dark  circumstances 
of  the  coup  d'etat.  The  exiles  had  employed  their 
leisure  in  constructing  an  elaborate  mythology  of  the 


THE  EMPEROR  389 

crowded  days  of  December,  1851;  and  since  every 
cause  requires  a  martyr,  the  republicans  were  fortu- 
nate in  a  belated  recollection  of  the  part  played  by 
M.  Baudin.  Shot  gallantly  (if  a  trifle  superflu- 
ously) on  a  barricade  and  subsequently  forgotten 
by  his  supporters  for  seventeen  years,  this  obscure 
victim  became  in  1868  a  symbol  of  insurrection.  Stray 
references  to  him  began  to  appear  in  print;  crowds 
learned  to  cheer  his  name;  the  national  genius  for 
political  funerals  was  thwarted  by  the  unfortunate 
circumstance  that  he  was  already  buried,  but  it  was 
not,  it  was  never  too  late  for  the  posthumous  dis- 
tinction of  a  monument,  and  some  newspapers  opened 
a  subscription-list.  There  was  even  a  notion  that  the 
Emperor  might  head  the  list  of  subscribers.  But  his 
ministers  foresaw  the  unpleasantness  of  an  eloquent 
unveiling,  and  the  papers  were  prosecuted.  A  brief 
for  the  defence  was  delivered,  by  some  fortunate 
chance,  to  Maitre  Gambetta ;  and  on  a  November  day 
in  1868  France  heard  for  the  first  time  the  great  voice 
that  was  to  reverberate  through  politics  for  fourteen 
years.  French  procedure  has  rarely  insisted  upon  the 
distinction,  so  dear  to  the  arid  formalism  of  British 
jurisprudence,  between  a  theatre  and  a  court  of  law; 
and  the  dramatic  possibilities  of  a  trial  were  never 
more  generously  exploited.  There  was  no  defence; 
but  with  a  lively  change  of  scene  the  defence  became 
the  prosecution.  The  Empire  was  challenged  in  its 
origins,  and  Maitre  Gambetta  launched  with  gusto 
into  a  crashing  denunciation  of  the  coup  d'etat.  Rele- 
vance and  forensic  courtesy  were  swept  aside;  he 
shook  his  mane;  he  roared;  he  quoted  Sallust.  All 
the  wild  vigour  of  his  southern  verbiage  came  to- 
gether in  a  declamatory  tornado  of  invective;  and 


390  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

when  he  dropped,  rumpled  and  panting,  into  his  seat, 
Paris  had  found  a  new  sensation,  and  the  vague 
republican  murmur  of  'En  voild  assez!'  which  George 
Sand  seemed  to  catch  in  the  earth  and  the  trees  and 
the  sky  of  1868  was  suddenly  articulate.  His  clients 
were  convicted;  but  an  advocate's  reputation  rises 
superior  to  such  trifles,  and  one  talked  as  much  of  M. 
Gambetta  that  autumn  as  one  did  of  Rossini's  death 
and  M.  Dore's  drawing  of  the  dead  maestro  and  a 
clever  young  pianist  named  Saint- Saens. 

The  evening  of  the  Empire  was  unrestful,  and 
Napoleon  moved  uncertainly  through  the  failing 
light.  He  was  more  alone  now  than  in  the  early  days ; 
the  Imperial  circle  had  grown  old  with  him,  and  so 
many  of  his  men  had  died.  A  new  mood  of  impatience 
was  growing  on  the  public  mind;  Lord  Lyons  had 
noticed  it  when  he  came  to  Paris,  and  the  Empress 
was  to  say  bitterly  in  later  years,  'En  France,  au 
commencement,  on  pent  tout  faire;  au  bout  d'un 
certain  temps,  on  ne  peut  meme  plus  se  moucher/ 
The  country  was  a  little  wearied  by  the  apparent  op- 
portunism of  Imperial  policy,  in  which  dexterity 
seemed  to  have  been  substituted  for  principle ;  and  the 
Emperor  had  nothing  new  to  offer.  Early  in  1869 
he  alarmed  international  opinion  with  an  unfortunate 
transaction  in  his  later  manner.  A  private  negotia- 
tion by  a  French  railway  company  for  running  rights 
over  a  Belgian  system  alarmed  the  Belgians.  Lord 
Clarendon  instantly  suspected  'a  sneaking  attempt 
to  incorporate  Belgium  by  means  of  a  railway  com- 
pany and  its  employes.'  There  was  a  flutter  at 
Osborne,  where  the  Queen  had  always  felt  a  tender- 
ness for  her  uncle  Leopold  and  his  subjects;  and 
Mr.  Gladstone  stayed  his  axe  at  the  foot  of  the  Irish 


THE  EMPEROR  391 

upas  tree  for  the  composition  of  emphatic  memoranda 
upon  Belgian  neutrality.  Anxious  gentlemen  hurried 
from  Brussels  to  Paris;  and  when  the  Belgian  atti- 
tude seemed  to  resist  the  peaceful  French  penetration, 
Napoleon  and  his  ministers  irritably  suspected  the 
hand  of  Bismarck.  M.  Rouher  stamped  out  of  a 
room  proclaiming  'Tot  ou  tard,  cette  guerre  est  inevi- 
table; le  prince  imperial  ne  regnera  pas  si  Sadowa 
nest  pas  efface;  eh  bden!  s'ils  la  veulent,  la  guerre, 
soit!'  Even  the  Emperor  made  inquiries  of  Marshal 
Niel  about  a  campaign  in  Belgium  and  was  answered 
fJe  suis  pret.3  Mr.  Gladstone  was  sounded  by 
Bernstorff  as  to  his  readiness  to  take  the  field  with 
Prussia  in  the  sacred  cause  of  Belgian  neutrality,  and 
Lord  Clarendon  muttered  angrily  about  'sales  tri- 
potages'  and  'all  the  jobbery  and  pots  de  vin  that  are 
passing.'  But  the  mood  changed  in  Paris;  peace  was 
maintained,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  went  back  to  the 
Irish  Church  Bill. 

The  Emperor  turned  an  anxious  eye  upon  France, 
where  an  election  was  bringing  all  his  enemies  into 
line.  The  new  republicans  were  massed  a  shade 
menacingly  behind  the  elder  statesmen  of  the 
Opposition,  and  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior  no  longer 
felt  equal  to  the  deliberate  manipulation  of  the  electo- 
rate which  had  produced  the  unanimous  majorities 
of  1857  and  1863.  Even  his  official  candidates  spoke 
in  the  strange  new  dialect  of  constitutionalism.  Out- 
side Paris  the  country  remained  loyal  to  the  Empire 
with  Liberal  reservations;, but  in  the  capital  an  im- 
patient surge  of  advanced  opinion  swept  aside  the 
sedate  republicanism  of  the  older  type  and  substituted 
the  wilder  gestures  of  MM.  Gambetta  and  Rochefort 
for  the  more  measured  utterance  of  MM.  Jules  Favre 


392  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

and  Garnier-Pages.  M.  Ollivier  was  defeated  in 
Paris,  and  even  M.  Thiers  found  difficulty  in  retain- 
ing his  seat.  The  election  was  followed  by  a  strange 
week  of  disorder.  Crowds  hung  about  the  streets  on 
summer  nights;  there  was  some  hooting  and  the 
sound  of  broken  glass,  and  they  burnt  a  cabmen's 
shelter  in  Belleville.  At  the  Tuileries  there  were 
lights  in  the  great  windows,  and  nervous  guests  looked 
out  at  a  sea  of  surly  faces  in  the  Carrousel.  There  was 
a  ball  at  the  palace  that  evening ;  but  the  floor  was  half 
empty  as  the  band  swung  to  the  gentle  lilt  of  Wald- 
teufel's  valses,  and  between  the  dances  one  could  hear 
sharp  voices  shouting  orders  and  the  angry  surge  out- 
side as  the  police  charged  the  crowd.  The  rioting  died 
down,  and  when  the  Emperor  drove  out  with  Eugenie 
in  an  open  carriage,  they  were  tolerably  well  received. 
There  was  a  coal  strike  in  the  provinces,  and  a  legacy 
of  bitterness  was  left  by  an  unfortunate  collision  with 
the  troops  at  La  Ricamarie.  The  Emperor  affected 
to  be  satisfied  with  the  results  of  the  election.  But 
the  country  was  uneasy,  and  Lord  Lyons  interpreted 
its  temper  as  weariness  'of  the  uncertainty  and  dis- 
quiet in  which  they  are  kept  by  the  fact  that  peace 
and  war,  and  indeed  everything,  depend  upon  the 
inscrutable  will  of  one  man  whom  they  do  believe 
capable  of  giving  them  surprises,  and  whom  they  no 
longer  believe  to  be  infallible.'  The  real  verdict  of 
the  country  in  1869  was  a  condemnation  of  autocracy 
and  of  its  most  prominent  agent,  M.  Rouher.  Even 
Persigny  admitted  in  public  that  the  generation  of 
the  coup  d'etat  had  played  its  part;  and  in  his  un- 
hurried fashion,  whilst  the  new  Deputies  took  the 
road  for  Paris,  the  Emperor  prepared  to  face  the 
new  demand. 


THE  EMPEROR  393 

The  Chamber  met  after  midsummer,  and  Napo- 
leon's incurable  taciturnity  permitted  it  to  meet  in 
total  uncertainty  as  to  his  intentions.  There  was  a 
strange  failure  on  the  part  of  the  Emperor  to  put  him- 
self at  the  head  of  the  Liberal  movement  which  was 
manifestly  sweeping  the  country,  and  the  British  am- 
bassador reported  gloomily  on  his  dwindling  prestige : 

'When  one  looks  at  the  position  in  which  things  stood,  I 
will  not  say  before  the  election,  but  between  the  election 
and  the  meeting  of  the  Chamber,  one  is  astonished  at  the 
rapid  descent  of  the  personal  power  and  the  reputation. 
Whether  concessions  will  come  in  time  to  enable  him  to  stop 
before  he  is  dragged  to  the  bottom  of  the  hill,  is  even 
beginning  to  be  questioned.' 

The  concessions  came;  but  they  had  an  unfortunate 
air  of  following  rather  than  leading  the  political  ten- 
dencies of  the  day.  There  was  a  general  promise  of 
constitutional  reform,  and  the  new  era  was  con- 
secrated by  the  sacrifice  of  M.  Rouher. 

The  Vice-Empereur  had  ceased  to  reign;  but  the 
Emperor  had  a  return  of  his  illness  in  August,  and 
his  resolution  was  unequal  to  the  shock  of  a  new 
departure  into,  genuine  constitutionalism.  Rouher 
was  out;  but  the  Liberals  were  not  yet  in,  and  when 
an  obviously  transitional  ministry  was  formed,  opin- 
ion was  impressed  that  finality  had  not  yet  been 
reached.  The  Constitution  was  amended  by  the  com- 
plete emancipation  of  the  Chamber;  freedom  of  de- 
bate and  legislation,  questions  to  ministers,  and 
financial  control  were  restored  to  the  Deputies,  and 
even  the  Senate  caught  a  breath  of  the  new  air.  It 
was  a  strange  celebration  of  the  centenary  of  Napo- 
leon I.  But  the  Liberal  Empire  had  not  yet  enlisted 


394  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

the  support  of  the  Liberals,  and  Lord  Clarendon  was 
left  with  an  uneasy  'instinct  that  they  will  drift  into 
a  republic  before  another  year  is  over.'  In  the  autumn 
the  Empress  went  off  to  attend  the  opening  of  the 
Suez  Canal,  after  alarming  Lord  Lyons  with  the  sug- 
gestion of  a  visit  to  India.  The  Empire  seemed  to  be 
jolting  uncomfortably  through  a  period  of  transition, 
with  strikes  in  the  industrial  areas  and  some  incom- 
petent rioting  in  Paris,  when  Eugenie  confided  to  her 
ebien  cher  Louis'  her  impressions  of  a  journey  to  Port 
Said  by  way  of  Constantinople.  Her  spelling  was 
not  invariably  faultless,  but  her  emotions  were  al- 
ways genuine — in  Venice,  fcette  ville  du  silence,  ou 
tout  semble  glisser'  at  'Majenta'  where  she  laid  a 
wreath  by  torchlight,  on  board  the  Aigle  with  a  bora 
blowing  down  the  Adriatic  and  all  the  Turkish  guns 
banging  at  the  Dardanelles.  The  Sultan  was  charm- 
ing, and  the  Khedive  'd'un  galant  a  te  faire  dresser  les 
cheveuac*  The  French  yacht  steamed  through  the 
Canal  at  the  head  of  the  line,  and  everybody  went  to 
see  the  wonderful  new  Egyptian  opera  A'ida,  which 
Ismail  had  ordered  from  the  maestro  Verdi  for  the 
occasion.  With  startling  rapidity  the  electric  tele- 
graph brought  to  the  Comtesse  de  Pierrefonds  (for 
Eugenie  had  acquired  the  supreme  royal  affectation 
of  incognito]  the  news  from  home,  and  the  Egyptian 
campaign  of  the  Second  Empire  was  crowned  by  a 
bulletin  from  Compiegne: 

'Tu  as  vu  les  Pyramides   et   les   quarante   siecles   t'ont 
contemplee:  nous  t'embrassons  tendrement. 

NAPOLEON/ 

But  politics  went  on  in  France,  whilst  the  Emperor 
consoled  his  solitude  by  giving  small  dances  at  the 


THE  EMPEROR  395 

Tuileries  for  some  American  young  ladies.  Even 
Eugenie  seemed  to  advise  an  honest  acceptance  of 
the  new  Liberalism: 

'Je  pense  malgre  tout  qu'il  ne  faut  pas  se  decourager  et 
marcher  dans  la  vote  que  tu  as  inauguree,  la  bonne  foi  dans 
les  concessions  donnees  .  .  .  plus  il  est  necessaire  de 
prouver  au  pays  qu'on  a  des  idees  et  non  des  expedients. 
.  .  .  Je  n'aime  pas  les  coups,  et  je  suis  persuadee  qu'on  ne 
fait  pas  deux  fois  dans  le  meme  regne  un  coup  d'etat.  .  .  ' 

The  autumn  deepened  in  disorder,  and  Napoleon 
seemed  to  drift  for  support  towards  the  Liberals. 
M.  Ollivier  was  discreetly  approached  in  October  and 
responded  in  voluminous  letters  with  a  quotation 
from  Machiavelli  and  an  offer  of  service,  fpret  a 
prendre  la  respomabilite  de  la  lutte  et  a  prendre  la 
revolution  corps  a  corps  comme  ministre'  Judicious 
intermediaries  flitted  up  and  down  with  messages, 
and  on  a  November  evening  he  left  by  the  Gare  du 
Nord  for  Compiegne ;  a  large  muffler  and  the  absence 
of  his  spectacles  lent  him  an  unusual  air  of  mystery. 
At  the  country  station  a  secretary  tapped  him  on  the 
arm;  he  was  spirited  to  the  Chateau  in  a  closed 
carriage,  and  the  Emperor  was  waiting  in  his  study. 
They  talked  until  midnight,  and  a  night  train  took 
M.  Ollivier  back  to  Paris.  Napoleon  seemed  to  hesi- 
tate, to  shrink  from  the  full  logic  of  a  Liberal 
ministry,  and  to  prefer  an  innocuous  blend  of  Liberal 
elements  with  his  present  ministers.  There  was  an 
interval  of  correspondence  in  which  the  Emperor 
confided  to  M.  Ollivier  'la  grandeur  du  role  que  vous 
etes  appele  a  jouer'  and  M.  Ollivier  imparted  to  his 
sovereign  his  emotion  at  'I'elevation  calme  et  douce 
.  .  .  la  serenite  simple  qui  respirent  dans  la  lettre  de 


396  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

votre  Majeste/  But  in  the  intervals  between  his 
graceful  genuflexions  he  found  time  for  sound  advice. 
'Appelez  a  vous  la  jeunesse,  Sire,  elle  seule  pent  sau- 
ver  votre  fils,  les  vieillards  ego'istes  qui  vous  entourent 
ne  songent  qu'a  eux.  .  .  /  It  was  a  wise  diagnosis  of 
the  failing  powers  of  the  Empire,  of  the  creeping  de- 
bility which  nothing  but  the  new  Liberalism  could 
arrest.  Names  were  discussed  and  ministries  were 
allocated.  Before  the  transaction  was  complete,  the 
Chamber  met,  and  the  Emperor  publicly  indicated 
his  new  programme :  fLa  France  veut  la  liberte,  mais 
avec  I'ordre;  I'ordre  j'en  reponds.  Aidez-moi,  Mes- 
sieurs, a  sauver  la  liberte.'  It  was  Napoleon's  reply 
to  the  election  of  the  egregious  M.  Rochefort  for  a 
division  of  Paris,  and  a  month  later  he  made  his 
meaning  clear  by  inviting  M.  Ollivier  to  form  a  par- 
liamentary ministry.  The  invitation  was  accepted; 
solemn  gentlemen  consulted  their  consciences  and 
took  office  from  the  highest  motives ;  there  was  a  pleas- 
ant flutter  at  the  opening  of  a  new  year,  and  only  one 
shadow  fell  across  the  bright  hopes  of  M.  Ollivier  and 
his  friends.  It  was  the  year  1870. 


XVIII 

THE  faint  dawn  of  1870  broke  over  France  with  a 
pale  gleam  of  hope,  and  the  last  winter  of  the  Empire 
had  almost  an  air  of  spring.  New  men,  new  names, 
new  notions  seemed  to  come  crowding  on  the  scene, 
and  the  stiff  outlines  of  autocracy  were  melting  in 
the  rebirth  of  the  Empire  liberal  into  the  simpler, 
younger  form  of  a  modern  monarchy.  One  could 
see,  like  shadows  on  the  blind  of  a  lighted  room,  the 
Emperor's  tired,  gracious  gesture  of  surrender  and 
M.  Ollivier  standing  erect  to  take  up,  in  the  name  of 
France,  the  burden  of  the  Empire.  And  outside,  in 
the  sky  above  them,  the  dawn  of  1870  was  breaking. 
The  year  opened  in  the  pleasant  stir  of  the  new 
ministry.  The  decree  which  appointed  it  bore  date 
January  2,  and  for  a  few  months  it  lived  a  busy  life 
of  fresh  endeavour.  Someone  had  called  it  the 
ministere  des  honnetes  gens;  and  the  old,  faded 
figures  of  the  Empire  seemed  to  go  back  into  their 
corners,  as  the  band  struck  up  an  air  of  good  inten- 
tions and  M.  Ollivier  and  his  colleagues  took  their 
blameless  way  down  the  centre  of  the  stage.  M. 
Rouher  was  a  retired  grandee  in  the  Senate;  M. 
Haussmann  faded  inconspicuously  out  of  public  life ; 
and  even  M.  Thiers  seemed  satisfied.  The  Emperor 
played  little  games  with  the  monkey  which  Eugenie 
had  brought  from  Egypt  or  sat  at  Council  with  his 

397 


398  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

back  to  the  great  fire,  between  M.  Ollivier  and  the 
fierce  moustache  of  General  Leboeuf ,  drawing  on  his 
papers  and  making  tentative  suggestions.  That 
winter  there  were  great  parties  in  Paris;  Madame 
Ollivier  wore  the  little  dresses  which  made  them 
call  her  Sainte  Mousseline  at  the  palace,  and  among 
the  uniforms  one  saw  queer,  half -forgotten  figures 
where  M.  Guizot  came  out  once  more  to  hear  the 
talk  and  M.  Odilon  Barrot  abounded  with  twenty 
years'  accumulation  of  good  advice.  There  was  a 
strange,  refreshing  air  of  new  beginnings,  and  the 
older  men  seemed  to  stand  aside  to  watch  the  slow 
dawn  of  the  Empire  liberal.  But  it  was  the  dawn  of 
a  day  that  never  came. 

There  was  a  flicker  of  disorder  before  the  month 
was  out  which  showed  the  quality  of  the  new  minis- 
ters. The  Emperor  had  a  faintly  raffish  cousin 
named  Pierre  Bonaparte,  who  lived  in  the  suburbs 
after  a  somewhat  violent  career  in  the  more  congenial 
air  of  the  Balkans  and  South  America.  His  private 
life,  in  spite  of  an  aptitude  for  minor  poetry,  was 
mainly  morganatic ;  and  his  energies,  which  were  fre- 
quently offered  to  the  Imperial  service  and  invariably 
refused,  were  principally  devoted  to  the  more  danger- 
ous forms  of  sport.  By  an  unhappy  inspiration  he 
had  intervened  with  some  violence  in  a  controversy 
with  two  republican  newspapers;  and  having  invited 
MM.  Rochefort  and  Paschal  Grousset  to  challenge 
him  to  fight,  he  was  waiting  at  home  at  Auteuil  on  a 
January  afternoon  in  1870  with  a  bad  cold  and  (by 
an  unfortunate  mannerism)  a  large  revolver  in  his 
pocket.  Two  strangers  were  announced,  and  a  young 
man  named  Victor  Noir  walked  in  with  his  friend  to 
convey  to  the  Prince  a  challenge  from  M.  Grousset. 


THE  EMPEROR  399 

The  Prince  was  surly;  M.  Noir  was  an  offensive 
young  man  in  a  new  pair  of  gloves ;  someone  slapped 
someone's  face,  and  there  was  a  shot.  Victor  Noir 
reeled  dying  into  the  street,  and  his  friend  scrambled 
behind  the  chairs  and  tried  to  get  in  a  shot  at  the 
Prince.  The  young  man  in  the  new  gloves  died  out- 
side, and  by  six  o'clock  nervous  policemen  were 
arresting  Prince  Pierre  Bonaparte.  This  Mexican 
interlude,  if  the  republicans  exploited  it,  might  shake 
the  Empire.  The  grave  news  met  the  Emperor  at  a 
Paris  railway  station,  and  he  was  helped  to  his 
carriage.  M.  Rochefort  devoted  the  evening  to  the 
composition  of  a  staccato  invective  against  the 
Emperor's  family  fou  le  meurtre  et  le  guet-apens 
sont  de  tradition  et  d'usage,3  and  on  the  next  day  his 
paper  appeared  with  deep  black  borders.  The 
body  of  Victor  Noir  would  afford  an  exquisite,  an  un- 
paralleled excuse  for  a  political  funeral,  and  all 
Paris  was  invited  to  follow  the  hearse  from  Neuilly. 
But  M.  Ollivier  and  his  mild-eyed  colleagues  were 
disinclined  to  submit  to  the  violence  of  the  streets, 
and  his  spectacles  had  an  unusual  gleam  in  the 
Chambers  as  he  informed  the  excited  Deputies  that 
fnous  sommes  la  loi;  nous  sommes  le  droit;  nous 
sommes  la  moderation;  nous  sommes  la  liberte;  si 
vous  nous  y  contraignez,  nous  serons  la  force.'  The 
Liberal  Empire  was  beginning  to  have  an  uncomfort- 
ably metallic  ring,  and  the  benevolent  legal  gentleman 
who  presided  over  it  had  a  business-like  conversation 
with  General  Leboeuf,  Marshal  Canrobert,  and  Mar- 
shal Bazaine  as  to  the  best  disposition  of  the  troops. 
In  the  morning  a  huge  crowd  gathered  at  Neuilly  for 
the  funeral;  and  whilst  eager  spectators  hung  in 
bunches  from  the  trees  outside,  M.  Rochefort  argued 


400  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

with  his  friends  in  a  little  room  as  to  whether  the  great 
procession  should  march  heroically  across  Paris  to 
Pere  Lachaise  or  withdraw  for  speech-making  to  the 
safety  of  a  suburban  cemetery.  There  was  a  scuffle 
at  the  horses'  heads ;  but  the  driver  of  the  hearse  pre- 
ferred the  more  cautious  route,  and  the  crowd  trailed 
obediently  after  him  towards  Auteuil.  M.  Rochefort 
sat  on  the  hearse;  but  he  fainted  before  the  burial- 
ground  was  reached,  and  the  funeral  orations  were 
delivered  without  his  assistance.  Late  in  the  after- 
noon the  crowd  marched  back  to  Paris  by  the  line  of 
the  Champs  Elysees.  They  were  singing  the  Marseil- 
laise, and  Rochefort  drove  with  them  in  a  cab.  At  the 
Arc  de  Triomphe  they  clambered  up  and  shouted 
'Vive  la  Republique!'  but  the  troops  were  out  in  the 
broad  avenue  between  the  trees  and  the  Emperor  was 
waiting  in  uniform  at  the  Tuileries.  The  cavalry 
trotted  towards  the  crowd  with  drawn  swords,  and 
its  republican  principles  evaporated  before  this 
disturbing  spectacle.  The  road  emptied  suddenly, 
and  the  Liberal  Empire  had  survived  its  first 
journee. 

The  ministry  of  good  intentions  pursued  its 
amiable  way  through  the  cold  weather  of  1870. 
There  was  a  generous  proliferation  of  committees 
to  inquire  into  administrative  and  educational  re- 
form. But  national  discipline  was  maintained  by 
the  arrest  and  prosecution  of  M.  Rochefort;  he  was 
dining  with  Madame  George  Sand  that  evening,  and 
the  police  took  him  later  on  the  way  to  a  crowded 
meeting.  There  was  a  little  shouting  in  the  streets; 
the  troops  were  under  arms  in  barracks,  and  the  police 
had  a  busy  night.  Someone  made  a  stupid  speech  at 
a  dinner,  proposing  the  health  of  a  regicide  bullet — 


THE  EMPEROR  401 

fd  la  petite  balle  liberatrice,  a  la  petite  balle  humanir 
taire,  a  la  petite  balle  de  bon  secours  que  le  monde 
attendait' — and  there  was  some  trouble  in  M. 
Schneider's  works  at  Le  Creusot.  But  France  found 
it  possible  to  conduct  public  affairs  without  the 
voluble  assistance  of  M.  Rochefort,  who  passed 
his  time  in  prison ;  and  the  mutter  of  insurrection  died 
away  like  a  distant  storm. 

A  mild  glow  of  enlightenment  even  fell  on  the  dark, 
twisted  mass  of  Imperial  foreign  policy.  M.  Ollivier 
held  conversations,  quite  in  the  modern  taste,  about 
disarmament ;  and  Great  Britain  was  invited  through 
Lord  Lyons  to  approach  the  Prussians.  The  Liberal 
ministers  in  both  countries  had  no  enthusiasm  for 
large  armaments  and  high  taxation;  Lord  Clarendon 
was  full  of  distaste  for  'a  state  of  things  that  is 
neither  peace  nor  war,  but  which  is  so  destructive 
of  confidence  that  men  almost  desire  war  with  all  its 
horrors  in  order  to  arrive  at  some  certainty  of  peace, 
a  state  of  things  that  withdraws  millions  of  hands 
from  productive  industry  and  heavily  taxes  the  peo- 
ple for  their  own  injury  and  renders  them  dis- 
contented with  their  rulers';  Mr.  Gladstone  was 
impressed  that  the  object  of  the  proposed  demarche 
was  'noble,'  and  even  Queen  Victoria  was  prepared 
to  write  to  the  King  of  Prussia  with  her  own  hand. 
The  subject  of  disarmament  was  opened  in  Berlin. 
Bismarck  was  in  an  idyllic  mood.  He  wrote  to  cor- 
respondents about  unclouded  skies  and  universal 
peace.  But  when  the  British  ambassador  proposed 
that  Prussia  should  disarm  pan  passu  with  the 
French,  he  seemed  disinclined  to  include  Germany 
in  the  idyll.  Mr.  Gladstone  in  his  happy  island  could 
afford  such  dreams;  but  for  Prussia  there  was  still, 
26 


402  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

there  was  always  the  haunting  fear  of  French  in- 
vasion; and  then  Napoleon  was  so  incalculable. 
The  talk  trailed  on  through  the  winter;  but  it  got 
no  further  than  'a  sort  of  opening  as  to  a  conference 
between  Powers  as  to  proportionate  reductions  and 
exchange  of  guarantees.'  Bismarck  would  'not  de- 
cline to  share  in  any  deliberations,'  would  'carefully 
sift  the  question,'  might  even  estimate  the  value  of 
the  proffered  guarantees.  But  when  he  thought  of 
Prussia's  defencelessness  in  Central  Europe,  he  be- 
gan to  wring  his  hands ;  France  had  been  so  restless  as 
recently  as  1869  (one  remembered  the  disturbing 
transaction  of  the  Belgian  railways),  and  though  'the 
inclinations  of  a  Nation  may  be  essentially  peaceful 
.  .  .  neither  the  most  powerful  Monarch,  nor  the 
most  influential  Minister  is  able  to  estimate  or  guar- 
antee the  duration  of  peaceful  Inclinations.'  It  was 
all  infinitely  distressing  to  a  peace-loving  Chancellor, 
and  in  the  outcome  France  was  left  to  show  its  good 
faith  by  a  reduction  of  10,000  men  in  the  conscription 
of  1870,  which  Count  von  Moltke  noted  in  his  papers. 
But  the  work  of  the  General  Staff  went  on,  and  Lord 
Clarendon's  demarche  had  failed.  It  was  a  queer 
interlude ;  and  after  he  had  died  in  the  crowded  sum- 
mer weeks  of  1870  'in  the  very  act,'  as  Lord  Gran- 
ville  said,  'of  trying  to  arrange  a  matter  necessary  to 
civilisation  in  Europe,'  Bismarck  told  his  daughter 
in  the  British  embassy  at  Berlin  that  if  her  father 
had  lived,  there  would  have  been  no  war.  It  may 
be  doubted. 

The  bright  prospect  of  disarmament  faded,  as  the 
politicians  of  the  Empire  settled  down  to  the  con- 
genial task  of  debating  a  new  Constitution.  The 
form  and  powers  of  the  Senate  were  to  be  modified, 


THE  EMPEROR  403 

and  the  Constitution  of  1870  was  submitted  to  the 
electorate  for  the  final  consecration  of  a  plebiscite. 
There  was  a  vigorous  campaign,  in  which  the  army 
was  sedulously  canvassed  by  the  republicans,  and  the 
orators  of  the  Opposition  explored  the  Apocrypha  of 
political  invective  in  search  of  appropriate  descrip- 
tions of  the  Empire.  But  the  tyranny  which  they 
denounced  blandly  tolerated  their  declamations, 
except  when  assassination  was  openly  advocated. 
M.  Ollivier  abstained  from  the  use  of  official  pressure, 
and  on  May  8,  1870,  the  Liberal  Empire  was 
approved  by  a  majority  of  almost  six  millions  on  a 
poll  of  nine  millions.  There  was  a  little  uneasiness 
about  the  vote  of  the  army;  but  the  Emperor  and 
Eugenie  were  well  received  in  the  Paris  barracks, 
and  the  Empire  seemed  refreshed  by  its  new  contact 
with  democracy.  M.  Ollivier  was  radiant;  M.  Gam- 
betta  regarded  the  result  as  fun  ecrasement' ;  M.  Jules 
Favre  advised  a  young  friend  to  stay  at  the  Bar, 
because  fil  riy  a  plus  rien  a  faire  en  politique';  and 
even  the  Comte  de  Paris  (though  pretenders  are 
rarely  susceptible  to  changes  of  opinion)  felt  that 
little  remained  for  an  Orleans  prince  beyond  a  dis- 
creet withdrawal  to  America. 

In  the  world  beyond  the  French  frontier  the 
Emperor  had  resumed  his  slow  manipulation  of  the 
alliance  with  Austria.  The  Archduke  Albert,  who 
had  beaten  the  Italians  at  Custozza  in  1866,  came  to 
Paris  in  March;  the  ministers  saw  little  of  him,  but 
he  talked  strategy  to  Napoleon.  Nothing  was  put 
on  paper;  but  the  feeling  grew  that  the  two  Empires 
would  stand  together  against  Prussia,  and  when  a 
change  of  Foreign  Ministers  in  May  brought  M.  de 
Gramont  from  the  embassy  at  Vienna  to  the  Quai 


404  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

d'Orsay,  he  came  with  a  simple  faith  in  the  unsigned 
Austrian  alliance  which  he  had  pressed  on  the  two 
Emperors  at  Salzburg  and  discussed  so  eagerly  with 
Count  von  Beust.  There  was  a  talk  in  Paris,  where 
four  generals  sat  round  a  table  with  the  Emperor: 
within  four  months  all  of  them  heard  the  thudding 
German  guns  in  the  sunshine  outside  Metz  or  in 
the  echoing  hollow  of  Sedan.  But  in  May  1870,  they 
bent  over  their  maps  and  catalogued  the  victories  of 
the  new  triple  alliance  over  Count  von  Moltke.  It 
was  to  be  a  most  enjoyable  campaign:  whilst  the 
Prussians  were  held  in  Lorraine,  the  French  would 
pass  the  Rhine  and  grateful  South  Germans  would 
observe  their  meeting  with  the  Austrians  in  Bavaria, 
as  eager  Italians  came  pouring  northwards  through 
the  Tyrol  and  indignant  Danes  avenged,  under  the 
guns  of  a  French  fleet,  the  defeats  of  1864.  It  was  a 
noble  plan,  which  required  little  for  its  success  beyond 
an  alliance  or  so  and  the  sympathy  of  South  Ger- 
many. There  was  a  faint  uneasiness  about  the  open- 
ing weeks:  it  would  be  awkward  if  the  Prussians 
moved  before  the  Austrians  were  ready  to  strike  at 
them  from  the  south.  But  the  Archduke  was  so 
obliging,  and  in  June  General  Lebrun  went  off  to 
Austria  to  seal  the  bargain.  He  found  the  Arch- 
duke, in  the  less  heady  air  of  his  own  country,  a  shade 
inclined  to  withdraw  from  exciting  realities  into  the 
shadowy  sphere  of  military  theory;  and  they  dis- 
cussed academic  campaigns  according  to  the  best 
principles  of  the  art  of  war.  He  saw  the  Austrian 
Emperor  privately  under  some  trees  in  a  great  park. 
Franz-Joseph  was  full  of  friendliness  and  highly 
confidential;  but  there  was  a  disquieting  tendency 
to  postpone  the  Austrian  move  until  after  the  first 


THE  EMPEROR  405 

French  victory.  Lebrun  came  back  to  Paris  in  the 
hot  June  days.  The  world  seemed  very  still;  Mr. 
Hammond  noticed  the  lull  in  foreign  affairs,  and  M. 
Ollivier  informed  his  colleagues  in  the  Chamber  that 
at  no  time  had  European  peace  seemed  more  assured. 
Three  days  later  (it  was  a  Sunday,  and  M.  Ollivier 
had  gone  to  the  country  for  the  day)  a  telegram 
from  Madrid  informed  M.  de  Gramont  that  Marshal 
Prim  proposed  to  make  Prince  Leopold  of  Hohen- 
zollern-Sigmaringen  King  of  Spain. 

The  news  was  unexpected,  and  on  the  Sunday 
Gramont  drove  out  to  St.  Cloud  to  see  the  Emperor. 
But  the  idea  was  not  an  entire  novelty  at  the  Quai 
d'Orsay.  The  Spanish  throne  had  been  in  the  mar- 
ket for  almost  two  years;  judicious  king-makers  in 
Madrid  ignored  their  own  pretenders  and  thumbed 
the  Almanack  de  Gotha;  there  were  always  Coburgs 
to  be  had,  and  Austria  would  never  miss  an  Arch- 
duke; the  waiting  list  was  full  of  Bourbons;  a  taste 
for  novelty  suggested  an  Italian  prince,  or  one  might 
even  ask  Queen  Victoria  to  spare  a  son — the  Duke 
of  Edinburgh,  who  played  the  violin  so  charmingly. 
The  notion  of  a  Hohenzollern  seemed  to  come  from 
the  Prussian  papers.  The  Catholic  branch  was 
obviously  eligible;  one  son  had  already  been  placed 
in  Roumania;  and  after  a  Prussian  agent  had 
appeared  in  Madrid  to  appease  his  passionate  interest 
in  the  battle-fields  of  the  Peninsular  War,  the  name 
of  Prince  Leopold  was  launched  with  touching  spon- 
taneity by  a  Spanish  Deputy.  The  proposal  had 
alarmed  Paris  in  1869,  and  the  acute  M.  Benedetti 
was  directed  to  make  a  complaint  in  Berlin.  But 
Count  Bismarck  had  been  blandly  reassuring,  and 
the  disturbing  notion  of  a  Prussian  colonel  on  the 


406  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

throne  of  Spain  seemed  to  fade  away.  The  family 
was  mildly  disappointed:  it  was  never  easy  to  pro- 
vide for  younger  sons;  Charles  seemed  quite  happy 
as  a  sort  of  king  at  Bucharest,  and  a  young  man  with 
a  fair  moustache  and  a  taste  for  adventure  might  do 
far  worse  than  go  to  Madrid.  Napoleon  had  sup- 
ported the  Roumanian  appointment;  he  was  always 
kind  (was  he  not  urging  Charles  to  marry  in  Germany 
— fles  princesses  aLlemandes  sont  si  bien  elevees?)  — 
and  perhaps  he  would  put  up  with  a  younger  brother 
at  Madrid.  Bismarck  knew  better:  Napoleon  would 
not,  could  not  tolerate  a  second  Prussia  beyond  the 
Pyrenees,  and  the  project  meant  war  with  France. 
Since  German  unity  required  a  German  war,  it  was 
not  unwelcome.  Moltke  was  ready,  and  one  had 
better  fight  the  French  before  they  found  their  allies ; 
Beust's  drift  towards  France  looked  dangerous,  one 
could  never  trust  the  Italians,  and  Fleury,  the  new 
French  ambassador  at  St.  Petersburg,  was  driving 
about  in  the  Czar's  sleigh.  It  was  a  good  moment, 
and  early  in  1870  there  was  a  solemn  committee  of 
the  Hohenzollern  at  Berlin.  The  Catholic  branch 
was  informed  that  it  was  a  national  duty  to  accept 
the  Spanish  crown;  they  seemed  to  comply,  and  if 
Leopold  would  not  go  to  Madrid,  an  enterprising 
father  was  prepared  to  send  Fritz.  Spanish  gentle- 
men began  to  appear  in  Germany,  and  Prussian 
agents  flitted  about  Spain.  Prince  Leopold  con- 
quered his  doubts  in  June,  and  Prim  was  informed 
that  Bismarck  had  found  a  king  for  him.  There 
was  a  pleasant  lull  in  Europe.  The  Emperor,  who 
was  ill  again,  was  resting  at  St.  Cloud,  and  the  King 
of  Prussia  was  at  Ems  to  take  the  waters.  The 
statesmen  were  on  holiday;  Count  Bismarck  was  at 


THE  EMPEROR  407 

Varzin,  M.  Benedetti  was  on  leave,  and  even  the 
indomitable  Prim  was  in  the  hills  behind  Toledo. 
But  the  news  got  out:  the  French  ambassador  at 
Madrid  asked  questions ;  and  when  his  report  reached 
Paris  on  a  quiet  Sunday  in  July,  the  stage  was  set 
hurriedly  for  the  first  act  of  a  tragedy. 

The  French  case  was  obvious,  and  it  was  promptly 
stated  in  the  language  of  diplomacy  at  Berlin  and 
Madrid  and  repeated  in  the  fuller  tones  of  journalism 
by  the  whole  French  press.  On  the  Tuesday  the 
Emperor  asked  Baron  Rothschild  to  telegraph  to  his 
London  house  for  pressure  to  be  put  on  Mr.  Glad- 
stone to  secure  the  withdrawal  of  Prince  Leopold. 
Someone  gave  notice  of  a  question  in  the  Chamber, 
and  on  a  Wednesday  morning  the  Council  met  at 
St.  Cloud.  Leboeuf,  who  had  succeeded  Niel  at  the 
Ministry  of  War,  was  asked  whether  he  could  face 
the  prospect  of  hostilities,  and  assented;  there  was  a 
vague  talk  about  alliances,  and  the  Emperor  took 
two  letters  from  a  drawer  and  read  them  to  his 
ministers.  The  letters  were  from  Franz-Joseph  and 
Victor  Emmanuel;  they  were  a  year  old  and  ex- 
pressed a  polite  predilection  for  the  French  alliance. 
Gramont's  draft  of  his  reply  for  the  Chamber  was 
revised  in  Council,  and  before  two  o'clock  the  min- 
isters drove  back  to  Paris.  The  question  was  an- 
swered by  the  Foreign  Minister  in  a  firm  statement: 

'Nous  ne  croyons  pas  que  le  respect  des  droits  d'un 
peuple  voisin  nous  oblige  a  souffrir  qu'une  puissance 
etrangere,  en  plagant  un  de  ses  princes  sur  le  trone  de 
Charles- Quint,  puisse  deranger  a  noire  detriment  I'equili- 
bre  actuel  des  forces  en  Europe,  et  mettre  en  peril  les 
interets  et  I'honneur  de  la  France.' 

There  was  a  roar  in  the  Chamber,  and  M.  Ollivier 


408  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

explained  his  colleague's  policy  to  the  excited 
Deputies:  'Lie  Gouvernement  desire  la  paix!  II  la 
desire  avec  passion,  mais  avec  I'honneur*  There  was 
a  sudden  flutter  in  Europe.  It  was  only  the  day 
before  that  the  permanent  under-secretary  had  been 
telling  Lord  Granville  of  the  lull  in  foreign  affairs, 
and  the  new  Foreign  Secretary  confessed  a  little 
helplessly  to  Lord  Lyons  that  the  news,  which  arrived 
whilst  they  were  debating  the  Irish  Land  Bill,  'took 
Mr.  Gladstone  and  me  by  surprise.'  But  the  expedi- 
ents of  British  policy  were  unheroic:  the  prescient 
Hammond  drafted  despatches  for  Lord  Granville, 
and  the  Queen  might  write  a  letter.  Russia  was 
apathetic;  and  Beust  fell  back  on  good  advice  pro- 
posing, with  a  rare  instinct  for  comic  opera,  that  a 
French  cruiser  should  intercept  Prince  Leopold  on 
his  way  to  Spain.  Whilst  the  streets  of  Paris  began 
to  stir  and  mutter  and  excited  men  opened  their  news- 
papers in  the  sudden  enjoyment  of  a  bold  foreign 
policy,  the  French  sent  messengers  in  all  directions. 
Someone  might  see  Marshal  Serrano  in  Madrid  and 
persuade  him  to  withdraw  Prim's  candidate  for  the 
throne ;  a  Roumanian  came  to  St.  Cloud  before  dawn 
on  a  summer  morning  and  left  the  Emperor  with  a 
mission  to  Sigmaringen.  And  Benedetti  (his  moment 
had  arrived)  went  to  Ems. 

Prussia  had  been  elaborately  unapproachable  since 
the  crisis  opened.  Bismarck  had  gone  to  ground  at 
Varzin;  his  subordinates  in  Berlin  were  studiously 
obtuse;  and  their  innocuous  sovereign  was  sipping 
his  water  in  the  Kurhaus  at  Ems.  French  policy 
appealed  to  the  valetudinarian  Caesar,  and  M.  Bene- 
detti unpacked  his  luggage  at  the  Hotel  de  Bruxelles. 
He  saw  the  King  of  Prussia  twice ;  William  declined 


THE  EMPEROR  409 

to  put  pressure  on  Prince  Leopold.  But  suddenly 
relief  came  from  an  unexpected  quarter:  the  Prince 
and  his  father  succumbed  to  the  increasing  volume 
of  grave  advice,  and  after  nine  days  of  crisis  the 
Hohenzollern  candidature  was  withdrawn.  It  was  a 
triumph  for  France;  Bismarck  had  come  to  town  to 
start  his  war,  but  he  sat  staring  at  the  news  in  Berlin, 
whilst  M.  Ollivier,  who  had  been  handed  a  telegram 
in  the  Tuileries  Gardens  and  ran  home  to  tell  his 
wife,  was  spreading  the  good  news  in  the  Chamber. 
There  was  to  be  no  war ;  troop -movements  in  Algeria 
stopped,  and  the  King  of  Italy  went  off  to  shoot. 
That  afternoon  (it  was  Tuesday,  July  12)  the 
Emperor  drove  back  from  the  Tuileries  to  St.  Cloud ; 
he  was  cheered  on  the  road,  but  he  found  the  Court 
a  shade  sceptical  of  the  latest  triumph  of  French 
policy.  The  Prussian  government  was  not  a  party 
to  the  renunciation,  and  Sadowa  was  still  unavenged. 
The  Empress  seemed  gravely  dissatisfied,  and  Gen- 
eral Bourbaki  of  the  Guard  threw  down  his  sword 
and  struck  an  angry  attitude.  Gramont  was  there, 
and  in  the  late  afternoon  a  hasty  talk  produced  a 
fresh  policy.  The  King  of  Prussia  was  to  be  asked 
to  join  in  the  renunciation  and  to  guarantee  that  the 
Hohenzollern  candidature  would  never  be  resumed: 
then  the  angry  ladies  and  gentlemen  at  St.  Cloud 
would  be  satisfied,  and  the  Empire  might  claim  a  vic- 
tory over  the  parvenu  power  of  Prussia.  M.  Ollivier 
had  said  to  M.  Thiers  at  the  Chamber:  fNous  tenons 
la  paioc,  nous  ne  la  laisserqns  pas  echapper/  He  was 
wrong. 

The  new  instructions  were  telegraphed  to  Ems 
through  the  darkness  of  the  summer  night,  while 
M.  Ollivier  tried  to  get  some  sleep  and  played  with 


410  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

the  notion  of  resignation;  and  in  the  morning  sun- 
shine M.  Benedetti  was  waiting  under  the  trees  at 
Ems  to  see  the  King  of  Prussia.  The  old  gentleman 
had  drunk  his  water  and  was  strolling  benevolently 
along  the  Kurgarten  on  that  Wednesday  morning. 
But  Benedetti  seemed  to  reopen  the  whole  affair 
with  his  fresh  demand  for  guarantees.  The  King 
refused  a  little  shortly,  and  they  parted  near  the 
bandstand.  He  asked  three  times  to  see  the  King 
again;  but  polite  gentlemen  came  to  the  Hotel  de 
Bruxelles  and  informed  the  ambassador  that  the  case 
did  not  require  .  .  .  that  no  useful  purpose  .  .  .  that 
Majesty  had  nothing  to  add.  That  morning  there 
was  a  wrangle  at  St.  Cloud  over  the  French  mobilisa- 
tion; M.  Ollivier  insisted  on  delay,  and  the  Empress 
was  rude  to  him  at  lunch.  That  evening  Bismarck 
dined  in  Berlin  with  von  Moltke  and  von  Roon. 
Their  casus  belli  had  faded,  and  the  three  men  sat 
gloomily  round  the  table.  But  a  telegram  came  in 
from  Ems  with  the  story  of  King  William's  morning. 
The  Chancellor  altered  it  for  publication,  and  in  the 
new  version  the  King's  attitude  was  represented  as 
a  final  dismissal  of  the  French  ambassador.  Dinner 
was  resumed  in  a  more  convivial  mood;  the  frigid 
Moltke  became  almost  uproarious,  and  von  Roon 
vociferated  his  renewed  faith  in  an  old  German  God. 
That  night  the  news  was  known  in  Berlin,  and  a 
great  crowd  was  roaring  fNach  Paris!'  outside  the 
Schloss.  A  bellicose  Deputy  was  dining  at  St.  Cloud, 
and  the  Emperor  was  still  fumbling  with  French 
policy. 

The  news  reached  Paris  on  the  next  morning  (it 
was  Thursday,  July  14),  and  all  that  summer  after- 
noon the  ministers  sat  in  Council  with  the  Emperor 


THE  EMPEROR  411 

at  the  Tuileries.  About  four  o'clock  they  decided  to 
call  out  the  reserves,  and  Leboeuf  went  off  to  the 
Ministry  of  War  to  give  his  orders.  There  was  a 
nervous  silence  at  the  Council ;  one  minister  muttered 
to  Napoleon  that  a  defeat  would  bring  a  revolution, 
and  someone  with  a  last  gleam  of  hope  proposed  a 
Congress.  The  Emperor  welcomed  the  familiar 
expedient,  and  his  eyes  filled  with  tears.  M.  Ollivier 
drafted  something  eloquent  for  the  Chamber;  but  it 
was  too  late  to  make  a  statement  that  evening,  and 
the  Council  adjourned.  When  it  met  again  after 
dinner  at  St.  Cloud,  there  was  a  change  of  tone; 
Bismarck  had  sent  the  news  from  Ems  to  every  capi- 
tal in  Europe,  and  the  French  ministers  could  not 
face  their  country  with  a  compromise.  They  talked 
until  nearly  midnight,  and  drove  back  to  Paris  under 
the  summer  stars.  The  streets  were  full  of  men  shout- 
ing 'a  Berlin!'  and  at  the  Opera,  by  special  leave, 
for  the  first  time  in  eighteen  years  someone  was  sing- 
ing the  Marseillaise. 

On  the  Friday  morning  the  Council  met  early  at 
St.  Cloud.  Gramont  read  over  the  draft  of  a  state- 
ment for  the  Chamber,  and  the  Emperor  clapped  his 
hands.  Lebceuf  said  that  the  army  was  ready  and 
that  the  chances  in  a  war  with  Prussia  would  never 
be  better.  Benedetti  was  waiting  at  the  Quai  d'Orsay, 
a  little  mystified  by  the  significance  which  the  world 
seemed  to  attach  to  his  adventure  with  the  King  at 
Ems;  and  M.  Ollivier  went  down  to  the  Chamber. 
He  made  his  statement  in, the  proud  tone  of  a  minister 
announcing  war,  and  he  was  followed  by  M.  Thiers. 
By  a  singular  irony  this  indomitable  critic  of  Imperial 
policy,  who  had  reproached  Napoleon  since  1866  with 
the  rise  and  the  menace  of  Prussia,  became  suddenly 


412  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

reasonable.  He  was  heard  with  impatience  by  an 
excited  House,  and  M.  Ollivier  returned  to  the 
tribune  to  make  his  meaning  clear.  He  re-stated 
the  insulting  publication  of  the  report  from  Ems, 
and  having  argued  the  soundness  of  his  cause,  he 
made  a  sudden  gesture: 

'Oui,  de  ce  jour  commence  pour  les  ministres  mes  col- 
legues  et  pour  moi,  une  grande  responsibilite.  Nous 
Vacceptons,  le  cceur  leger!' 

The  phrase  rang  later  with  a  tragic  ineptitude,  and 
the  speaker  passed  forty  years  more  of  a  long  life 
in  arguing  it  away.  But  the  Chamber  was  cheering 
on  that  July  afternoon  in  1870.  The  debate  trailed 
on,  and  the  House  went  into  committee  to  hear  the 
ministers  in  camera.  Leboeuf  praised  the  Chassepot 
and  the  mitrailleuses;  Gramont,  when  someone  asked 
about  alliances,  looked  mysterious  and  mentioned 
the  Austrian  ambassador  and  the  Italian  minister. 
The  day  was  almost  over.  In  London  a  red  box  was 
passed  along  the  Treasury  Bench  to  Mr.  Gladstone, 
and  he  said  in  such  a  strange  tone,  'War  declared 
against  Prussia.'  There  was  an  evening  session  of 
the  Chamber  which  voted  credits  and  called  up  the 
Garde  mobile,  whilst  M.  Rouher  was  felicitating  his 
sovereign  at  St.  Cloud  and  the  Emperor  was  walking 
slowly  round  among  his  Senators  and  saying,  fCe  sera 
long  et  difficile,  il  faudra  un  violent  effort'  They 
were  cheering  in  the  streets  of  Berlin;  and  whilst 
Paris  roared  'a  Berlin!'  in  the  failing  light,  Nana  was 
dying  in  her  room  on  the  boulevard,  and  in  a  garden 
at  Blackheath  Mr.  Morley  was  telling  the  news  to 
Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill.  The  war  had  come. 


XIX 

THE  sky  was  dull  over  Paris  when  the  Emperor  left 
St.  Cloud.  There  was  a  hint  of  thunder  in  the  air, 
and  a  few  early  leaves  had  fallen.  He  had  a  word 
with  his  ministers  about  an  offer  of  mediation  from 
the  Pope  and  went  gravely  round  the  salon  with  a 
cigar  in  his  fingers  to  say  good-bye.  Then  he  took  up 
his  kepi  and  walked  for  the  last  time  out  of  a  French 
palace.  The  carriages  were  waiting,  and  he  stared 
in  front  of  him  as  they  drove  down  to  the  little  station 
in  the  park.  At  the  train  he  took  Eugenie  in  his 
arms:  they  never  met  again  in  France.  The  Prince 
Imperial  was  with  them,  and  in  the  silence  she  drew 
the  sign  of  the  cross  on  the  boy's  forehead  in  the 
Spanish  fashion.  As  the  train  moved,  she  called  out 
'Louis,  fais  bien  ton  devoir!'  and  the  Emperor  waved 
his  hand  from  the  great  window  of  his  saloon.  Hats 
came  off  on  the  platform,  and  there  was  a  faint  cheer 
of  'Vive  I'Empereur!'  from  the  little  crowd.  The 
Empress  drove  back  in  an  open  carriage  with  her  face 
hidden.  The  train  clanked  over  a  level  crossing,  and 
some  people  cheered.  That  night  the  Emperor  was 
at  Metz.  • 

The  French  armies  were  strung  out  awkwardly 
along  the  line  of  the  frontier ;  and  there  was  an  uneasy 
pause  before  the  great  advance  began,  which  was  to 
swing  MacMahon  across  the  Rhine  and  stretch  a 

413 


414  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

hand  to  Austria  over  the  neutral  kingdoms  of  South 
Germany.  A  fleet  was  fitting  out  at  Cherbourg  for 
the  Baltic,  and  Trochu  was  to  command  an  army 
which  would  land  under  its  guns,  force  Diippel,  and 
raise  Hanover  against  the  Prussians.  But  French 
diplomacy  was  still  piping  to  the  Danes,  and  they 
would  not  dance;  Italy  and  Austria  had  developed 
a  belated  passion  for  peace;  and  the  South  Germans, 
who  had  been  imperfectly  rehearsed  for  their  parts 
in  the  Emperor's  plans,  were  mobilising  under  von 
Moltke's  orders.  Even  the  neutrals  became  faintly 
hostile  when  Bismarck  startled  Mr.  Gladstone's  sus- 
ceptibilities (and  set  him  asking  Mr.  Cardwell  ques- 
tions about  'the  means  of  sending  20,000  men  to 
Antwerp')  by  publishing  Benedetti's  draft  treaty  of 
1866  for  the  annexation  of  Belgium  to  France;  and 
there  was  a  sudden,  tragic  echo  when  the  French 
minister  at  Washington  gave  way  in  the  great  heat 
and  shot  himself.  The  Cent-gardes  were  clattering 
through  the  streets  of  Metz  on  a  summer  evening,  as 
the  Emperor  drove  from  the  station;  and  there  was 
a  pleasing  discussion  among  the  foreign  diplomats 
in  Paris  as  to  whether,  in  view  of  the  early  prospect 
of  French  victories,  they  should  illuminate  the 
embassies.  But  on  the  frontier  Leboeuf  was  tele- 
graphing for  ammunition,  and  Frossard  was  inquir- 
ing a  little  helplessly  for  a  few  maps  of  France  in 
place  of  the  copious  issues  of  German  sheets  which 
he  found  finutiles  pour  le  moment' ;  recruits  were 
trailing  about  France  in  search  of  their  units;  a 
brigadier  arrived  in  Belfort  and  failed  to  find  his 
command;  and  Metz  was  calling  hungrily  for  a  mil- 
lion rations.  There  was  a  hasty  conference  when 
the  Emperor  arrived,  and  on  the  next  day  he  was 


THE  EMPEROR  415 

inspecting  troops  at  St.  Avoid.  Bazaine  and  Fros- 
sard  met  him,  and  there  was  a  casual  talk  about  a 
raid  on  Saarbriick.  The  town  had  no  importance; 
but  it  was  on  Prussian  territory,  and  an  advance  into 
Germany  would  look  well  in  the  French  papers. 
Napoleon  had  written  home  rather  dispiritedly  to 
the  Empress;  he  was  driving  miserably  round  the 
cantonments  outside  Metz,  and  in  a  letter  to  M. 
Ollivier  he  made  a  dismal  confession:  fNous  avons 
tout  interet  a  trainer  la  guerre  en  longueur,  puisqu'il 
nous  est  impossible  de  la  terminer  par  ce  qu'on 
appelle  un  coup  de  foudre/  But  after  an  army  corps, 
with  bands  playing  the  Marseillaise,  had  driven  in  a 
screen  of  Prussian  infantry  and  shelled  the  railway- 
station  at  Saarbriick  on  August  2,  his  mercurial 
Parisians  were  invited  to  rejoice  over  the  first  French 
victory,  and  a  courtly  communique  informed  the 
nation  that  the  Prince  Imperial  had  received  his 
'baptism  of  fire.'  The  boy  found  it  rather  enjoy- 
able; he  was  allowed  to  keep  a  shot  that  fell  near 
them,  and  as  they  waited  on  the  hillside  under  fire, 
it  almost  seemed  as  though  the  four-leaved  clover 
which  Eugenie  had  sent  from  St.  Cloud  had  brought 
them  luck.  But  his  father  suffered  cruelly  on  horse- 
back; he  had  been  in  pain  all  the  morning  and  kept 
his  horse  at  a  walk.  The  firing  died  away  about  one 
o'clock,  and  the  Emperor  stumbled  heavily  to  the 
ground  muttering  to  Lebrun,  fJe  souffre  horriblement 
.  .  .  je  prefere  marcher  un  peu;  cela  me  soulage'  It 
was  a  queer,  pitiable  ending  to  the  long  tale  of 
Bonapartes  in  the  field  which  had  begun  with  a 
gaunt  young  general  in  the  sunshine  at  Monte- 
notte. 

The  sick  Emperor  fumbled  with  his  armies  round 


416  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Metz,  and  slowly  in  the  first  weeks  of  August  von 
Moltke's  troop-trains  began  to  pour  his  men  along 
the  French  frontier.  Douay  was  caught  at  Wissem- 
bourg;  and  on  August  6,  whilst  Frossard  was  driven 
in  on  the  French  masses  in  front  of  Metz,  Mac- 
Mahon  eighty  miles  to  the  south-east  was  fighting 
for  Alsace  among  the  trees  of  Worth.  His  field  guns 
were  outranged,  but  the  Zouaves  went  stumbling 
forward  through  the  hedges  with  the  bayonet;  fresh 
German  troops  came  up  to  the  sound  of  the  guns; 
and  as  the  Crown  Prince  sat  watching  on  his  horse 
across  the  valley,  the  French  were  checked,  were  held, 
were  forced  back  up  the  slope.  There  was  a  sudden 
drumming  of  hoofs,  a  gleam  of  tall  steel  helmets,  a 
flutter  of  waving  horsehair  as  the  Cuirassiers  crashed 
into  a  charge  and  plunged  forward  through  the  sun- 
shine to  be  shot  to  pieces  in  a  village  street.  Some- 
where to  the  left  the  Turcos  were  yelling  and  lunging 
with  bayonets  among  the  trees;  and  as  the  sun 
dropped  behind  the  blue  line  of  the  Vosges,  the 
French  went  trailing  westwards  in  retreat. 

When  the  news  came  to  Metz,  there  was  an  evening 
of  dull  confusion.  The  Emperor  sat  staring  in  the 
Prefecture,,  and  angry  soldiers  argued  round  him. 
In  Paris,  where  the  Empress  was  turning  over  the 
pages  of  her  Bible  in  search  of  lucky  passages,  false 
news  of  a  victory  had  sent  a  great  crowd  surging 
into  the  Place  de  la  Concorde;  two  figures  stood 
above  the  sea  of  faces  and  sang  the  Marseillaise  from 
an  open  carriage,  and  M.  Ollivier  made  a  speech  from 
a  balcony.  But  the  news  faded ;  and  as  the  telegrams 
came  in  from  Metz,  a  sullen  crowd  began  to  trail 
about  the  streets.  It  was  a  warm  evening,  and  they 
were  shouting  in  time: 


THE  EMPEROR  417 

'Ollivigr! 
Ollivier! 
Des  nouvelles! 
Des  nouvelles!' 


Scared  ministers  were  staring  at  a  telegram  with  the 
news  of  two  defeats,  and  at  St.  Cloud  a  pale,  hand- 
some woman  was  fighting  down  her  tears  and  saying, 
'La  dynastie  est  perdue,  il  ne  faut  plus  songer  qu'a 
la  France.3  Someone  broke  down,  and  she  turned 
sharply  on  her :  fNe  m 'attendrissez  pas,  j'ai  besoin  de 
tout  mon  courage'  In  the  dark  hours  of  the  summer 
night  she  drove  into  Paris  for  the  last  time,  and  a 
Council  met  among  the  sheeted  furniture  at  the 
Tuileries.  General  Trochu  was  there,  and  he  became 
voluble  about  his  colleagues'  errors.  He  was  still 
speaking  when  the  Council  adjourned,  and  someone 
stayed  behind  to  listen  to  him.  They  had  decided 
to  call  the  Chamber,  and  in  the  dawn  M.  Ollivier 
walked  home  through  the  silent  streets. 

That  day  (it  was  a  Sunday)  the  Emperor  drove  by 
the  first  light  to  his  train  at  Metz.  He  was  to  join 
the  army  at  St.  Avoid  for  a  general  advance;  but 
at  the  station  they  gave  him  a  telegram,  and  his 
doubts  returned.  He  showed  it  to  Leboeuf  and  drove 
back  to  the  Prefecture.  All  that  day  they  were  full 
of  plans  and  good  advice.  Someone  was  bold  enough 
to  urge  that  the  Emperor  should  leave  the  army  and 
go  back  to  Paris.  A  tactful  general  referred  to  1812, 
but  the  Emperor  sat  quietly  on  a  sofa  and  took  the 
Prince  Imperial  on  his  knee.  He  asked  his  heir: 
' Je  veux  que  tu  sois  juge  de  la  question.3  The  boy 
was  excited,  and  he  replied :  'C'est  impossible,  rentrer 
avant  de  nous  etre  battus,  ce  sermt  un  deshonneur.' 

?7 


418  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

The  point  of  honour  seemed  a  trifle  childish;  but 
French  opinion  would  be  childish  also,  and  it  had 
been  plainly  stated  by  a  child. 

For  four  days  more,  whilst  Eugenie  took  chloral  in 
an  empty  palace  and  Paris  stared  at  the  news  of 
Worth,  he  fumbled  with  his  armies.  Metz  seemed 
full  of  plans  and  each  one  had  its  turns.  Sometimes 
they  were  to  stand  and  give  battle  in  Lorraine ;  some- 
times they  were  to  fall  back  on  Chalons  and  cover 
Paris  in  the  great  plain  of  Champagne.  The  weary 
columns  tramped  up  and  down  in  the  driving  rain 
(the  season  had  broken),  and  the  armies  of  the 
Empire  wheeled  interminably  with  the  shifting 
strategy  of  their  master.  One  day  a  thin  old  man 
came  to  headquarters  and  gave,  with  a  queer  flavour 
of  old  republican  debates,  the  name  of  Changarnier; 
they  found  him  a  uniform,  and  he  peered  about  to 
see  men  whom  he  had  known  in  Africa.  But  the 
Emperor  still  trailed  his  doubts  about  the  Prefecture; 
and  when  M.  Ollivier  begged  Eugenie  to  bring  him 
back  to  Paris,  she  turned  angrily j  'Avant  une 
victoire,  c'est  impossible!  .  .  .  c'est  le  deshonneur!' 
They  pressed  her  to  recall  the  Prince  Imperial.  She 
said  that  he  knew  how  to  ride,  and  then,  in  a  sudden 
flare,  ell  pent  se  faire  tuer!  Oh!  laissez-le  se  faire 
tuer!' 

The  chamber  met  and  helped,  as  is  the  way  of 
Chambers,  to  win  the  war  by  making  a  crisis.  The 
Empress  had  struggled  helplessly  with  her  ministers ; 
but  she  found  an  excited  crowd  of  Deputies  to  rid 
her  of  them.  The  streets  were  full  of  angry  men, 
when  M.  Ollivier  spoke  for  the  last  time  in  the 
Chamber  and  then  resigned ;  the  hunt  for  scapegoats 
had  begun.  His  place  was  taken  by  an  elderly 


THE  EMPEROR  419 

cavalry  officer  named  Cousin-Montauban,  whom  the 
campaign  of  China  in  1860  had  decorated  with  the 
fantastic  title  of  Palikao;  and  the  last  ministry  of 
the  Empire  (it  was  formed  on  August  10  and  lasted 
for  twenty-four  days)  was  the  familiar  war-time 
masquerade  of  reaction  in  the  bright  clothes  of 
patriotism.  Paris  was  pleasantly  excited  by  the 
cheers  in  the  Chamber  and  the  shouts  in  the  street. 
But  at  Metz  the  days  passed  slowly.  The  Prussians 
were  feeling  their  way  into  France  and  Uhlans  were 
beginning  to  trot  into  startled  villages,  as  the  sick 
man  at  the  Prefecture  fingered  the  cards  uncertainly. 
In  the  first  movement  the  Emperor  of  the  French 
had  commanded  his  armies,  as  he  did  in  the  days 
when  Berthier  wrote  out  the  orders  and  Murat  rode 
jingling  with  the  cavalry.  But  Lebo2uf  had  failed 
him;  angry  telegrams  were  pouring  in  from  Paris; 
and  Bazaine  was  given  the  command.  The  tired 
battalions  turned  once  more  to  fall  back  from  Metz 
on  Verdun.  There  was  a  brisk  rear-guard  action 
beyond  the  river,  as  the  Emperor's  escort  clattered 
through  the  empty  Sunday  streets  and  he  drove  out 
of  Metz  saluting  with  a  tired  hand.  That  night  he 
lay  at  Longeville;  from  his  house  they  could  see  the 
smoke  drifting  over  Borny,  and  he  was  in  bed  when 
Bazaine  rode  up  to  report.  The  Emperor  was  almost 
cheerful — 'vous  venez  de  rompre  le  charme' — and 
he  was  waiting,  still  waiting  for  an  answer  from 
Franz- Joseph :  one  must  be  careful  of  the  army  and 
take  no  risks  which  might  discourage  dubious  allies. 
MacMahon  had  lost  an  army  in  Alsace;  but  there 
was  still  Bazaine  and  the  Army  of  (how  far  away 
it  seemed)  the  Rhine.  One  must  fall  back  into  France 
and  then  begin  again — tout  peut  se  retdblir. 


420  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Napoleon  had  been  eighteen  days  at  Metz,  and  on 
the  next  morning  (with  the  ghastly  ineptitude  of 
anniversaries  it  was  the  fete  of  the  Empire)  he  rode 
slowly  up  the  hill  to  Gravelotte.  There  was  a  village 
on  the  bare  ridge,  and  he  rested  at  a  little  inn.  All 
day  the  troops  went  marching  by;  there  was  silence 
in  the  ranks,  but  sometimes  they  stared  sullenly  at 
the  Emperor's  carriages  by  the  roadside.  Late  in 
the  afternoon  Bazaine  rode  up;  the  burly  man  had 
brought  some  flowers  for  his  sovereign.  That  night, 
as  they  slept  in  little  houses  at  Gravelotte,  the  Ger- 
r^ans  circled  slowly  round  Metz  to  the  south;  and 
in  the  early  light  the  Emperor  took  the  road  again 
in  an  open  carriage.  Bazaine  saluted,  as  Napoleon 
said,  'Je  vous  confie  la  derniere  armee  de  la  France; 
songez  au  Prince  imperial' ;  and  when  the  artillery 
drivers  touched  their  team,  the  carriage  went  down 
the  long  white  road.  A  line  of  vans  went  slowly 
with  it;  the  servants  wore  the  Emperor's  livery  of 
green  and  gold,  and  one  could  see  the  chefs  in  their 
white  coats  on  top  of  a  heavy  fourgon.  The  Lancers 
of  the  Guard  and  some  Dragoons  rode  with  them. 
But  on  the  road  he  changed  his  escort.  The  heavy 
cavalry  seemed  too  slow.  The  Emperor  (he  was 
wrapped  in  a  long  cloak  and  looking  ill)  said  some- 
thing faintly  to  a  general,  and  he  clattered  out  of 
Conflans  with  the  Chasseurs  d'Afrique.  They  took 
the  road  for  Verdun,  and  behind  them  a  plodding 
company  of  infantry  could  hear  the  guns  of  Rezon- 
ville.  Scared  faces  watched  the  Emperor  go  by,  and 
they  stopped  at  a  little  town  to  telegraph  to  Paris. 
Napoleon's  message  was  vague;  but  the  Prince 
Imperial  confided  to  Eugenie  his  delighted  experi- 
ences of  war : 


THE  EMPEROR  421 

'Ma  chere  Maman, —  Je  vats  tres  bien,  ainsi  que  papa; 
tout  va  de  mieux  en  mieux.  .  .  .' 

The  dismal  drive  went  on,  back  down  the  white  roads 
into  France.  At  one  o'clock  they  were  at  Verdun. 
The  streets  were  silent,  and  they  waited  whilst  a  train 
was  made  up.  Some  third-class  carriages  were 
coupled  to  an  engine;  a  few  carriage-cushions  were 
laid  on  the  wooden  seat,  and  the  Emperor  left  for 
Chalons.  Somewhere  behind  them,  on  the  slope  of 
Mars-la-Tour,  the  long  cavalry  trumpets  were  sound- 
ing the  charge  and  mounted  men  in  red  and  blue 
and  white  went  crashing  forward  over  the  hills.  The 
green  trees  of  the  Argonne  slid  past  the  window,  and 
at  a  little  station  in  Champagne  General  Trochu  came 
to  the  door.  He  had  travelled  from  Paris  to  take  com- 
mand of  an  army  corps,  and  the  dazed  man  with  the 
great  moustache  asked  him  twice,  a  little  stupidly, 
for  news  of  the  King  of  Prussia.  It  was  evening 
when  they  reached  the  camp  at  Chalons,  and  the 
Emperor  drove  to  his  quarters  in  a  cart. 

For  four  days  they  waited  at  Chalons.  The  trains 
came  steaming  in  from  the  east  with  MacMahon's 
broken  regiments  from  Worth,  and  disorderly  young 
mobiles  from  Paris  bawled  insults  at  Napoleon.  On 
the  first  morning,  whilst  Bazaine  was  falling  back  on 
Gravelotte,  there  was  a  hasty  talk  in  the  Emperor's 
room  at  Chalons.  When  they  told  him  that  his  place 
was  either  on  the  frontier  or  in  Paris,  he  replied: 
'C'est  mai,  j'ai  I'cdr  d'avoir  abdique/  Someone 
pressed  him  to  send  Trochu  back  to  the  capital  as 
Governor,  to  follow  him,  and  concentrate  the  troops 
round  Paris.  He  agreed,  and  Trochu  drove  to  the 
station ;  he  found  the  line  blocked  near  Epernay  with 


422  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

trains  full  of  material  for  the  siege  of  Mainz.  But 
Napoleon  was  no  longer  master  of  his  movements; 
the  government  was  in  Paris,  and  the  new  plan  was 
equally  distasteful  to  the  Empress  and  M.  de  Palikao. 
The  return  of  the  Emperor  seemed  a  fatal  admission 
of  defeat;  the  retreat  of  the  army  would  isolate 
Bazaine.  She  made  a  scene  with  Trochu  and  sent 
indignant  telegrams  to  Chalons.  There  was  a  des- 
perate insistence  that  MacMahon  should  advance  on 
Metz  and,  above  all,  that  the  Emperor  should  keep 
away  from  Paris.  But  von  Moltke  was  tracing  his 
circle  round  Bazaine;  the  French  were  locked  in 
Metz  by  the  long  day's  fighting  at  Gravelotte  on 
August  18,  when  Canrobert  stood  in  St.  Privat  and 
the  Prussian  Guard  came  storming  up  the  bare  slopes 
which  look  down  towards  France;  and  when  Mac- 
Mahon made  a  move  from  Chalons  three  days  later, 
the  game  was  lost.  He  marched  on  Rheims,  and  the 
Emperor  trailed  after  him.  That  night  M.  Rouher 
came  to  headquarters  to  urge  the  army  forward 
towards  Metz.  The  Marshal  refused;  but  when  a 
message  came  through  from  Bazaine  that  he  was 
breaking  out  of  Metz  to  the  north  by  way  of  Mont- 
medy,  they  marched  uncertainly  towards  him,  and 
the  fourgons  of  the  Emperor  rumbled  in  the  dust  of 
the  army.  For  eight  days  more,  whilst  MacMahon 
felt  blindly  for  Bazaine,  the  Emperor  dragged  after 
him  into  the  north-east.  The  Prince  was  sent  away; 
but  the  Cent-gardes  still  clattered  into  villages  with 
gleaming  helmets,  and  scared  countrymen  were  half 
afraid  to  call  out  'Vive  I'Empereur!'  as  a  carriage 
went  by  with  a  dull-eyed,  weary  man :  his  ragged  hair 
was  long  and  almost  white.  They  made  little  meals 
for  him,  but  he  would  not  eat;  and  at  night  someone 


THE  EMPEROR  423 

outside  his  door  heard  him  crying  out  in  pain.  Once 
he  mounted  a  horse  to  watch  the  fighting  by  the 
Meuse  at  Beaumont.  He  telegraphed  the  news  to 
the  Empress  and  went  to  his  quarters.  But  that 
night  at  dinner  they  ordered  him  to  take  a  train  to 
the  north ;  the  army  was  falling  back  along  the  river, 
and  he  trailed  patiently  after  it.  About  eleven  o'clock 
the  train  stopped  at  a  dark  station.  The  platform 
was  almost  empty  as  the  Emperor  got  down,  and  he 
walked  out  into  the  silent  streets  of  a  little  town. 
It  was  called  Sedan. 

On  the  next  morning  (it  was  the  last  day  of 
August,  and  his  faithful  Parisians  were  hunting 
Prussian  spies)  he  stood  on  a  tower  and  watched 
the  Germans  shelling  the  last  train  which  got  through 
the  slow  converging  movement  of  von  Moltke's 
columns.  The  last  army  of  the  Empire  was  trapped 
between  the  Germans  and  the  Belgian  frontier;  and 
when  a  general  said  something  about  his  safety,  the 
tired  Emperor  was  almost  curt :  'Je  suis  decide  a  ne 
pas  separer  mon  sort  de  celui  de  I'armee.'  There  was 
a  dark  night;  and  as  the  sun  came  up  on  September  1, 
1870,  the  guns  were  thudding  in  the  river  mist  at 
Bazeilles.  A  captain  clattered  up  to  the  Sous-pre- 
fecture after  dawn  with  word  that  the  Marshal  was 
wounded.  There  were  tears  in  Napoleon's  eyes  as 
he  took  the  news.  But  he  rode  out  with  his  staff; 
his  great  moustache  was  waxed  again,  and  he  had 
put  colour  on  his  white  face.  On  the  road  he  passed 
MacMahon,  and  for  four  hours  he  sat  his  horse  under 
the  German  gun-fire.  All  that  morning  he  strayed 
along  the  French  line  on  horseback;  twice  he  dis- 
mounted in  pain ;  and  once,  as  he  sat  behind  a  battery 
in  action,  the  men  turned  to  cheer  him.  Near  Givonne 


424  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

he  sent  his  staff  to  cover  and  waited  for  death  in  the 
open.  Yet  it  never  came.  One  of  his  men  was  killed 
and  three  were  wounded.  But  the  painted  Emperor 
galloped  across  the  heights  amongst  the  falling  men, 
as  his  last  army  reeled  into  its  last  defeat.  Before 
noon  he  was  back  in  the  town,  and  German  shells 
were  dropping  in  the  streets.  There  was  no  pause 
in  the  thunder  of  the  guns,  and  M.  de  Galliffet  took 
the  Chasseurs  d'Afrique  in  a  last  wild  charge  at 
Floing.  The  little  town  was  quivering  with  the  gun- 
fire; there  was  a  crash  of  falling  roofs,  and  the  pale 
flames  were  licking  broken  houses  in  the  sunshine. 
They  were  urging  him  to  break  out  of  Sedan  in  a 
mad  sortie.  But  the  Emperor  took  his  last  decision. 
Someone  was  sent  to  the  Citadel  to  hoist  a  white 
flag.  Still  the  guns  went  on,  and  the  tortured  man 
turned  helplessly  to  his  officers:  he  would  see  the 
King  of  Prussia,  but  firing  must  cease — 'II  faut 
absolument  que  le  feu  cesse  .  .  .  II  faut  faire  cesser 
le  feu,  il  faut  faire  cesser  le  feu.  II  n'y  a  que  trop 
de  sang  verse.3  But  shells  were  still  bursting  in  Sedan 
and  angry  soldiers  on  the  hills  outside  drove  at  the 
Germans  in  the  last  rush.  Two  Prussian  officers 
came  through  the  lines  and  summoned  the  fortress 
to  surrender.  The  Emperor  had  his  chance  and  sent, 
in  that  fine  writing  of  his,  a  letter  to  the  King: 

'Monsieur  mon  frere, — N'ayant  pu  mourir  a  la  tete  de 
mes  troupes,  il  ne  me  reste  plus  qu'a  remettre  mon  epee 
entre  les  mains  de  Votre  Majeste. 

'Je  suis  de  Votre  Majeste  le  bon  Frere, 

NAPOLEON/ 

A  French  general  (the  name,  with  a  flavour  of  old 
victories,  was  Reille)  rode  out  to  La  Marfee  with 
the  letter,  and  the  firing  died  away  round  Sedan. 


THE  EMPEROR  425 

There  was  a  night  of  conferences;  the  French 
commander  saw  von  Moltke  by  lamplight  in  a  little 
room,  and  Bismarck  talked  of  peace  with  an  in- 
demnity and  the  surrender  of  Alsace-Lorraine.  The 
day  came  slowly,  and  at  six  in  the  morning  of  Sep- 
tember 2  the  Emperor  drove  over  the  bridge  and  out 
of  Sedan  in  a  pair-horse  carriage.  Some  Zouaves 
were  lounging  at  the  gate,  and  for  the  last  time  he 
heard  them  call  'Vive  I'Empereur!'  But  down  the 
road  some  soldiers  threatened  him,  as  he  drove 
through  the  early  mist  between  the  trees  to  Donchery. 
Bismarck  rode  up  in  uniform,  and  Napoleon  took  off 
his  kepL  The  tall  man  did  the  same,  and  the 
Emperor's  tired  eyes  seemed  to  follow  the  movement 
of  his  cap.  As  they  came  to  a  big  revolver  in  his 
belt,  the  sick  man  changed  colour.  There  was  a  little 
talk  between  the  two  men  in  a  cottage  by  the  road. 
Something  was  said  about  terms;  and  as  they  sat  on 
a  bench  outside,  the  Emperor  struggled  against  the 
surrender  of  his  army.  But  Bismarck  rode  off,  and 
the  carriage  went  down  the  road  to  a  little  house 
with  feudal  spires  and  a  conservatory.  It  was  called 
the  Chateau  de  Bellevue;  and  the  Emperor  went  in. 
They  made  him  take  some  wine  and  a  piece  of  bread ; 
and  he  was  reading  Montaigne  when  the  King  of 
Prussia  came.  The  tall  old  man  dismounted,  and 
the  Emperor  stood  on  the  steps  with  a  white  face; 
his  cheeks  were  wet  with  tear,s.  There  was  a  murmur 
of  courtesy  as  they  went  in  together.  That  day  he 
wrote  to  Eugenie  in  his  agony: 

'Ma  chere  Eugenie, — II  m'est  impossible  de  te  dire  ce  que 
j'ai  souffert  et  ce  que  je  souffre.  Nous  avons  fait  une 
marche  contraire  a  tons  les  principes  et  au  sens  commun; 
cela  devait  amener  une  catastrophe.  Elle  est  complete. 


426  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

J'aurais  prefere  la  mort  a  etre  temoin  d'une  capitulation  si 
desastreuse,  et  cependant,  dans  les  circonstances,  c'etait 
le  seul  moyen  d'eviter  une  boucherie  de  60,000  personnes. 

'Et  encore  si  mes  tourments  etaient  concentres  id!  Je 
pense  a  toi,  a  noire  fils,  a  noire  malheureux  pays.  Que 
Dieu  le  protege!  Que  va-t-il  se  passer  a  Paris? 

'Je  viens  de  voir  le  Roi.  II  a  eu  les  larmes  aux  yeux 
en  me  parlant  de  la  douleur  que  je  devais  eprouver.  II 
met  a  ma  disposition  un  de  ses  chateaux  pres  de  Hesse- 
Cassel.  Mais  que  m'importe  ou  je  vais!  .  .  .  je  suis  au 
desespoir.  Adieu,  je  t'embrasse  tendrement. 

NAPOLEON/ 

Outside  he  gave  a  hand  to  the  Crown  Prince,  and 
with  the  other  he  wiped  away  his  tears.  When  the 
King  had  gone,  he  said,  'Messieurs,  nous  allons  a 
Wilhelmshohe'  The  reign  was  over. 


XX 


THREE  days  later  (it  was  September  5,  1870)  the 
Emperor  came  by  train  through  the  driving  rain  into 
Cassel.  There  was  a  crowd  at  the  station,  and  he 
walked  slowly  at  the  salute  past  a  Prussian  guard  of 
honour.  Then  they  drove  off  among  the  dripping 
trees  to  Wilhelmshohe,  and  the  cruel  journey  ended. 
After  a  night  at  the  Chateau  de  Bellevue  (there  was 
a  novel  of  Lytton  by  his  bed)  he  had  left  Donchery 
on  an  autumn  morning  in  his  carriage.  The  road 
wound  round  Sedan  among  the  halted  German 
infantry.  People  stared  at  him  from  the  fields,  and 
sometimes  a  column  of  French  prisoners  shook  fists 
and  hooted.  In  the  last  French  village  he  gave  his 
money  to  some  soldiers,  and  they  drove  quickly 
among  the  trees  into  Belgium.  That  night  he  lay 
at  Bouillon  and  sent  word  to  Eugenie  of  his  agony 
— fLa  marche  d'aujourd'hui  au  milieu  des  troupes 
prussiennes  a  ete  un  vrai  supplied  But  France  lay 
behind  him,  and  he  stared  out  at  little  Belgian  towns. 
Their  next  halt  was  at  Verviers.  In  Neufchateau  he 
took  the  train  for  Germany,  and  at  Verviers  a  boy 
went  calling  newspapers  along  the  railway  platform. 
'Chute  de  I' Empire!'  (he  heard  the  news)  'Fuite  de 
I'lmperatrice!'  That  night  Napoleon  did  not  sleep. 
The  news  had  reached  Paris  on  September  3.  The 
Empress  faced  it  with  a  cold  stare  of  horror.  She 
stood  on  the  little  staircase  in  the  Tuileries  where 

427 


428  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

Napoleon  used  to  come  up  from  his  study  with  his 
cigarette  when  he  heard  her  gong,  and  she  asked  men 
angrily  whether  it  could  be  true.  Her  nights  of 
chloral  and  her  days  of  coffee  were  ending  in  disaster, 
and  for  one  dreadful  minute  she  was  swept  into  wild 
rage  with  her  husband.  Then  she  went  off  to  Council. 
They  sat  till  dinner;  and  when  the  Chamber  met  at 
midnight,  M.  Jules  Favre  gave  notice  of  motion  to 
depose  the  Emperor  and  his  family.  The  House 
rose  before  dawn;  but  Paris  did  not  sleep.  A  great 
crowd  was  roaring  round  the  dark  palace  half  the 
night,  and  they  had  found  a  chant  of  three  syllables, 
without  which  no  Parisian  riot  can  hope  to  be 
successful : 

'Decheance! 
Decheance!' 

The  shouts  drifted  across  the  dark  garden  into  the 
empty  rooms  where  Eugenie  was  waiting.  But  the 
new  day  came  up  brightly  over  Paris.  Early  the 
next  morning  (it  was  a  Sunday)  she  heard  mass;  and 
they  were  calling  papers  in  the  streets  with  cries  of 
'Napoleon  III.  prisonnier/  The  last  Council  met 
at  eight,  and  they  fumbled  with  plans  for  a  new 
Regency.  But  a  crowd  was  gathering  in  the  Place 
de  la  Concorde,  and  the  Empress  telegraphed  de- 
spairingly to  her  mother  at  Madrid : 

'.  .  .  Du  courage,  chere  mere;  si  la  France  veut  se 
defendre,  elle  le  peut.  Je  feral  mon  devoir.  Ta  mal- 
heureuse  file,  EUGENIE/ 

Outside  the  sun  was  shining  in  the  great  square,  and 
the  crowds  were  staring  across  the  river  at  the  Palais 


THE  EMPEROR  429 

Bourbon.  There  was  a  line  of  mounted  police  on  the 
bridge;  and  Sir  Charles  Dilke  strolled  round  to  see 
the  sights,  whilst  his  friend  Mr.  Labouchere  made 
comic  speeches  to  the  crowd  in  the  most  amusing 
characters.  About  mid-day  the  square  was  almost 
empty  (it  was  lunch-time,  and  the  sun  beat  down  on 
the  broad  pavement  between  the  fountains),  and 
some  solemn  gentlemen  walked  over  from  the  Cham- 
ber to  persuade  the  Empress  to  abdicate.  She  had 
few  ambitions  left ;  but  to  desert  her  post  in  face  of  a 
German  invasion  was  distasteful.  She  was  quite  calm 
and  consented,  with  an  unusual  respect  for  the  Con- 
stitution, to  act  as  her  ministers  might  decide.  But 
the  decision  was  taken  elsewhere.  The  streets  were 
filling  again,  and  the  troops  were  disinclined  to  fight. 
A  disorderly  crowd  broke  into  the  Palais  Bourbon, 
and  about  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  Septem- 
ber 4,  1870,  M.  Gambetta  was  informing  the  Cham- 
ber in  his  great  voice  that  the  dynasty  had  ceased  to 
reign,  whilst  M.  Jules  Favre  said  something  encour- 
aging about  a  Provisional  Government.  They  met 
General  Trochu  on  his  horse  outside  and,  with  a 
quaint  flavour  of  1848,  five  gentlemen  went  off  once 
more  to  make  a  new  world  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville. 
The  streets  were  shouting  'Vive  la  Republique!'  and 
M.  Merimee  was  writing  his  last  letter  at  the  Senate. 
Somewhere  across  Paris,  in  the  sunshine  and  the 
shouting,  a  Spanish  woman  was  waiting,  like  his 
Carmen  outside  the  bull-ring,  for  the  blow.  They 
came  round  her  at  the  Tuileries  with  terrified  advice. 
Someone  went  out  of  the  room  to  fetch  a  revolver, 
and  she  slipped  away  with  Prince  Metternich  and 
the  Italian  minister.  They  got  into  the  Louvre,  and 
their  steps  went  echoing  down  the  great  empty  gal- 


430  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

leries;  there  were  bare  spaces  on  the  walls  where  the 
best  of  the  pictures  had  been  sent  to  Brest  for  safety. 
At  the  foot  of  a  staircase  she  came  out  into  the  sun- 
shine. The  street  was  full  of  men;  they  were  all 
shouting;  but  when  a  youth  saw  her  face  and  turned 
to  give  the  news,  his  voice  was  swept  away  in  the 
uproar  of  the  crowd.  They  found  a  closed  cab,  and 
she  drove  slowly  through  the  press  in  the  Rue  de 
Rivoli  with  her  veil  down  and  a  hand  to  her  face. 
She  could  see  them  taking  down  the  eagles  as  she 
went;  it  tasted  bitter,  and  she  said,  a  little  ruefully, 
'Dejaf  At  the  first  house  of  refuge  no  one  was  at 
home;  the  cab  had  been  sent  away,  but  they  found 
another  and  drove  to  an  American  dentist's  in  a  quiet 
street.  He  was  quite  startled  when  he  came  in  and 
found  her  waiting.  At  the  Tuileries  her  adventurous 
cousin,  M.  de  Lesseps,  in  whose  honour  she  had  gone 
to  Suez,  was  wrangling  with  a  tall  young  man  in 
uniform  named  Sardou;  and  outside  the  Palais  Bour- 
bon they  were  chalking  up  the  names  of  the  Provis- 
ional Government  on  the  great  pillars — Trochu, 
Jules  Favre,  Gambetta,  and  a  republican  constella- 
tion which  even  included  the  stormy  star  of  Roche- 
fort.  On  the  next  day  the  enterprising  dentist  drove 
her  to  the  coast.  That  night  the  Emperor  came  to 
Wilhelmshohe. 

The  days  passed  slowly  among  the  trees  at  Cassel. 
There  was  a  vague  flavour  of  the  First  Empire  about 
the  place;  Jerome  had  lived  there  when  he  was  King 
of  Westphalia,  and  on  the  first  morning  Napoleon 
found  a  portrait  of  his  mother.  It  seemed  to  be 
always  raining;  and  they  sat  about  and  talked,  or 
read  the  letters  which  came  in  a  slow  trickle  from 
France.  The  Government  of  National  Defence  was 


THE  EMPEROR  431 

striking  attitudes;  and  Paris,  the  bright,  bedizened 
Paris  of  the  Second  Empire,  was  stripping  for  a 
siege.  But  whilst  the  naval  guns  were  mounted  out- 
side the  city  and  Eugenie  and  the  Prince  were  star- 
ing out  of  the  bow-windows  of  the  Marine  Hotel  at 
Hastings,  Napoleon  was  smoking  in  his  little  room 
at  Cassel.  He  wrote  a  pamphlet,  Des  causes  qui 
out  amene  la  capitulation  de  Sedan,  and  a  second  on 
Les  relations  de  la  France  avec  I'Allemagne  sous 
Napoleon  III.;  they  were  published  in  Brussels  with- 
out his  signature.  The  Prussian  army  seemed  to 
fascinate  him;  all  that  autumn,  whilst  he  went  for 
little  walks  in  the  park  and  eyed  the  uniforms  of  the 
German  sentries,  he  was  collecting  technical  material 
for  a  book  on  German  military  organisation;  and 
once  in  the  barracks  at  Cassel  he  was  allowed  to  see 
a  battery  of  the  new  breech-loading  field-guns.  It 
was  always  hot  in  the  little  room  where  the  Emperor 
wrote,  and  the  group  of  silent  Frenchmen  had  a 
faint,  despairing  air  of  St.  Helena.  General  Castel- 
nau  played  Bertrand  to  the  Hudson  Lowe  of  an 
obliging  German  count.  But  Hesse-Cassel  was  less 
impressive  than  the  South  Atlantic,  and  Bonapartist 
piety  never  compiled  a  Memorial  de  Wilhelmshohe. 

Politics  seemed  very  far  away;  the  Russians  were 
quietly  tearing  up  treaties  in  the  confusion,  and  at 
Rome  the  French  had  gone  and  the  Italians  were 
marching  in;  but  the  Emperor  sat  in  the  silence  of 
his  provincial  park,  whilst  the  great  guns  began  to 
boom  round  Paris.  At  Hastings  the  Empress  had 
made  a  vague  attempt  to  enlist  Franz-Joseph  and 
the  Czar  in  support  of  France,  and  an  equivocal 
gentleman  named  Regnier  flitted  about  with  a 
strange  project  for  a  peace-treaty  between  the  Ger- 


432  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

mans  and  the  Empire.  His  credentials  consisted  of 
an  air  of  mystery  and  a  photograph  of  the  sea-front 
at  Hastings  signed  (under  false  pretences)  by  the 
Prince  Imperial.  But  he  was  received  with  the 
utmost  gravity  at  German  headquarters.  Bismarck 
had  hoped  to  make  peace  with  the  Emperor  at  Sedan, 
and  he  was  half  inclined  to  put  his  peace  terms  up 
to  auction  between  the  Empire  and  the  Third  Re- 
public. Crushing  victories  are  frequently  embar- 
rassing to  the  victor  when  he  comes  to  strike  his 
bargain;  and  an  Emperor  with  an  army  seemed  at 
once  a  more  stable  and  a  more  congenial  contracting 
party  than  the  incalculable  rhetoricians  who  were 
gesticulating  in  the  Government  of  National  De- 
fence. M.  Regnier  went  off,  under  German  auspices, 
to  Metz  to  ascertain  whether  Bazaine's  army  was 
disposed  to  re-establish  the  Empire.  General  Bour- 
baki  was  permitted  to  run  the  blockade  and  came  to 
England;  he  saw  the  Empress,  but  there  was  no 
result.  A  few  weeks  later  there  was  a  queer  attempt 
to  secure  Eugenie's  consent  to  an  Imperialist  pro- 
nunciamiento  on  the  best  Spanish  model  by  the  garri- 
son of  Metz;  Bazaine  was  still  holding  out,  and  the 
Germans  seemed  to  countenance  his  incursion  into 
politics.  But  the  Empress  was  unresponsive,  and 
Bazaine  never  played  Monk  in  the  new  Restoration. 
The  fortress  fell;  and  as  they  burned  their  flags,  the 
last  eagles  of  the  Empire  faded  into  history. 

Napoleon  was  still  watching  the  German  sentries 
at  Wilhelmshohe.  It  seemed  like  the  distant  misty 
days  at  Ham;  Conneau  was  there,  and  when  an 
American  came  to  see  him,  he  discussed  the  old  faded 
project  of  a  Panama  canal.  But  one  quiet  Sunday 
a  cab  drove  up  from  the  station;  a  young  man  mut- 


THE  EMPEROR  433 

tered  something  to  Napoleon,  who  stared  and  said, 
eEst-ce  possible?  Qu'elle  vienne  vite!'  He  stood 
quite  quietly  on  the  steps,  and  Eugenie  walked  up. 
They  had  not  met  since  that  dull  morning  at  St. 
Cloud;  and  when  a  door  closed  behind  them,  he  was 
sobbing  in  her  arms.  She  stayed  for  two  days  and 
slipped  back  across  Belgium  into  England.  The  war 
trailed  on  into  the  hard  winter  of  1870,  when  strange, 
impromptu  armies  took  erratic  courses  across  France ; 
dramatic  ministers  alighted  from  balloons,  and  admi- 
rals rode  on  horseback  commanding  queer  mixed 
units  of  gendarmes  and  Spahis,,  whilst  Garibaldi  led 
francs-tireurs  in  Burgundy  and  Chanzy's  moblots 
died  in  the  snow  outside  Le  Mans  to  show  that 
France  was  still  unbeaten.  They  skated  a  little  at 
Wilhelmshohe,  and  a  galaxy  of  Marshals  arrived, 
fresh  from  the  surrender  of  Metz.  Bazaine  was  there, 
looking  a  little  dull,  and  Canrobert,  and  Lebceuf, 
whom  no  one  seemed  to  speak  to.  There  was  a  mild 
revival  of  politics;  Fleury  and  Pietri  were  perpet- 
ually departing  on  mysterious  errands  into  Switzer- 
land; and  there  was  even  a  fantastic  request  to  the 
King  of  Prussia  that  his  captive  Guard  should  be 
interned  round  the  captive  Emperor.  But  Paris  was 
beginning  to  starve,  and  the  war  was  ending.  The 
guns  spoke  slower  now  from  Mont-Valerien,  and 
Bourbaki's  army  trailed  across  the  snow  into  Switzer- 
land. Bismarck  had  made  his  King  an  Emperor 
among  the  mirrors  at  Versailles,  and  once  more  he 
seemed  to  play  with  the  notion  of  a  Bonaparte 
restoration.  Bewildered  Frenchmen  brought  their 
hopes  to  him ;  but  he  signed  peace  with  the  Republic, 
and  Napoleon  was  left  at  Cassel,  muttering,  ' Je  suis 
desolef  In  February,  1871,  he  broke  his  silence — 

28 


434  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

fce  profond  silence  qui  est  le  deuil  du  malheur* — 
with  a  manifesto  to  the  French;  the  illegality  of  the 
republican  dictatorship  was  denounced,  and  there 
was  a  grave  appeal  to  the  electorate.  But  the  new 
Assembly  at  Bordeaux  confirmed  the  deposition  of 
the  Emperor  and  proclaimed  a  queer  Republic — fla 
Republique  sans  les  republicains' — under  M.  Thiers. 
There  was  a  faint  protest  from  Wilhelmshohe ;  but 
the  Empire  went  obediently  into  exile.  On  a  March 
day  in  1871  Napoleon's  carriages  drove  down  to  the 
station.  The  place  was  crowded  (it  was  a  Sunday) ; 
but  as  the  train  started,  there  was  no  sound  from  the 
people.  On  the  way  to  the  frontier  news  reached 
them  of  the  Commune:  Paris  had  gone  mad;  but 
Napoleon  was  smoking  in  a  German  railway-carriage, 
and  M.  Thiers  was  left  to  deal  with  the  pleasing 
problems  of  repression.  At  Cologne  the  station  was 
decorated  for  the  returning  troops,  and  they  could 
read  the  great  names  of  German  victories  on  the 
decorations.  They  reached  Herbesthal  in  the  dark, 
and  passed  the  frontier  into  Belgium.  On  the  next 
day  Eugenie  and  the  Prince  were  waiting  at  the  Lord 
Warden  Hotel  to  see  the  Ostend  boat  steam  into 
Dover  harbour.  Napoleon  met  them;  his  train  ran 
up  the  line  through  the  little  fields  of  Kent  to  Chisle- 
hurst,  and  they  were  all  together  once  more  at  Cam- 
den  Place.  It  was  the  house  where  Miss  Rowles  had 
lived,  whom  he  nearly  married  in  1847;  and  by  way 
of  the  Tuileries  and  Sedan  he  had  reached  it  at  last. 

There  was  a  mild  glow  of  evening  over  the  little 
house  in  Kent.  It  seemed  to  stand  under  a  quiet 
sky  among  the  trees.  They  had  shelled  St.  Cloud 
into  ruins,  and  there  were  flames  in  the  Tuileries  as 
the  petroleuses  ran  crouching  through  the  drifting 


Napoleon  III.  (1871) 
From  a  photograph 


THE  EMPEROR  435 

smoke  and  the  troops  marched  in  from  Versailles. 
But  at  Chislehurst  the  birds  wheeled  slowly  over  a 
silent  garden,  and  Napoleon  sat  writing  in  his  little 
study  or  smoked  in  the  big  chair  after  dinner.  He 
was  mostly  writing;  there  was  a  little  pamphlet  on 
French  policy — Les  Principes — which  its  author 
signed  in  a  pitiably  modest  name — 'par  un  ancien 
diplomate/  Later  he  wrote  a  fuller  work  on  the  war 
and  the  military  preparation  of  the  Empire,  Les 
Forces  Militaires  de  la  France  et  la  Campagne  de 
1870;  it  was  a  mild  strategic  apologia  for  Sedan. 
Sometimes  they  had  visitors;  the  Queen  came,  with 
Princess  Beatrice  and  Prince  Leopold;  the  county 
called;  Mr.  Borthwick  of  the  Morning  Post  was 
often  there,  and  once  Mr.  Sullivan  played  the  piano 
for  hours  together.  On  Sunday  mornings  they 
walked  across  the  Common  to  church,  and  Napoleon 
raised  his  great  top  hat,  as  little  groups  of  loyal 
French  from  London  bowed  and  curtseyed  by  the 
road.  There  were  always  callers  at  the  house;  Lord 
Malmesbury  and  old  Earl  Russel  came,  Archbishop 
Tait  impressed  his  new  neighbours,  and  Christine 
Nilsson  sang  for  them  all  one  afternoon.  Sometimes 
busy  gentlemen  called  from  France,  and  Napoleon 
almost  became  an  Emperor  again;  M.  Rouher  was 
still,  was  always  faithful,  and  one  might  yet  (who 
knows?)  disturb  M.  Thiers  and  his  singular  Re- 
public. But  life  went  on  quietly  at  Chislehurst. 
The  little  hall  was  full  of  flowers  for  the  fete  of  the 
Empire,  and  on  fine  afternoons  the  ladies  took  tea  on 
the  lawn.  It  was  a  quiet  envoi. 

Sometimes  they  went  away.  In  the  first  autumn 
Napoleon  was  at  Torquay — 'charmant  endroit 
quoique  triste3 — whilst  Eugenie  was  in  Spain  with 


436  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

her  mother,  and  some  of  her  jewellery  was  being 
sold  in  London:  it  fetched  good  prices,  because  they 
were  buying  diamonds  for  the  Prince  of  Wales  to 
give  as  presents  to  the  Indian  princes  on  his  travels. 
In  1872  they  spent  the  summer  in  a  little  house  at 
Cowes,  quite  close  to  Hyde,  where  the  Empress  had 
landed  after  her  dreadful  crossing  from  Trouville 
with  Sir  John  Burgoyne;  and  once  or  twice  Napo- 
leon went  up  to  town  to  the  photographer's.  They 
even  saw  the  Prince  of  Wales  drive  to  St.  Paul's  for 
the  Thanksgiving  after  his  recovery  from  typhoid 
fever.  That  year  Napoleon  was  busy  with  vague 
beneficent  plans  for  improving  the  condition  of  the 
people;  he  drafted  schemes  for  old  age  pensions  and 
made  little  ingenious  drawings  of  economical  stoves 
for  working-class  dwellings.  His  mind  strayed 
actively  across  innumerable  problems,  as  he  paced 
the  long  corridor  at  Chislehurst.  One  might  abolish 
the  octroi;  one  might  even  (he  was  talking  to  a 
gentleman  from  London)  abolish  war.  Europe  had 
been  politely  amused  by  the  Emperor  and  his  Con- 
gresses; but  its  entertainment  would  have  bordered 
on  discourtesy  if  it  had  fathomed  his  strange  design 
— a  Council  in  regular  session  to  settle  the  world's 
affairs  and  an  Assembly  of  the  nations  meeting  to 
legislate  in  terms  of  international  law.  The  fantastic 
project  provoked  incredulous  smiles,  which  have 
scarcely  faded  before  its  realisation  at  Geneva. 

But  his  eye  was  fixed  on  a  nearer  future.  The 
Prince  was  at  Woolwich  now,  and  in  France  a  throne 
was  waiting.  Late  in  1872  Napoleon  made  his  last 
plan.  One  might  slip  over  to  Ostend,  by  Germany 
into  Switzerland,  and  then  to  Annecy,  past  the  great 
lake  where  Eugenie  had  stood  with  him  under  a  night 


THE  EMPEROR  437 

of  stars,  and  by  the  dim  hills  above  Aix  where  Hor- 
tense  had  once  sat  sketching.  Bourbaki  commanded 
at  Lyons ;  he  was  always  loyal,  and  one  might  march 
his  troops  on  Paris.  But  armies  do  not  follow  ill 
men  in  carriages:  one  must  ride  again.  He  tested 
himself  bravely  in  the  quiet  drive  at  Chislehurst; 
and  riding  was  not  easy.  Even  the  train  was  ex- 
hausting now;  and  he  faced  the  doctors  quietly. 
There  must  be  an  operation;  and  the  surgeons  came 
to  Camden  Place  in  the  first  week  of  1873.  They 
seemed  to  be  successful;  but  he  failed  suddenly.  It 
was  January  9,  and  Eugenie  was  with  him.  As  he 
drowsed  into  the  last  unconsciousness,  he  muttered 
something  to  Conneau  about  Sedan:  those  thudding 
guns  under  that  leaden  sky  haunted  him  to  the  end, 
and  the  story  was  over. 


XXI 

Six  years  later,  on  a  South  African  June  morning 
(it  was  Whitsunday  of  the  year  1879)  Lieutenant 
Carey  rode  eastwards  out  of  Itelezi  camp  with  six 
troopers  and  the  Prince  Imperial. 

For  reasons  which  were  a  trifle  mysterious  to  most 
of  her  subjects  the  armed  forces  of  Queen  Victoria 
were  engaged  in  hostilities  against  the  Zulus,  and 
Cetewayo's  impis  disturbed  that  Peace  which  (with 
Honour)  had  been  so  recently  promised  by  Lord 
Beaconsfield  to  the  British  electorate.  The  war  was 
an  unwelcome  legacy  from  an  active  Colonial  Sec- 
retary, who  had  figured  impressively  in  the  Cabinet 
as  Lord  Carnarvon  but  was  rendered  faintly  ridicu- 
lous to  his  contemporaries  by  the  nickname  of 
'Twitters.'  It  had  resulted  immediately  from  the 
uncontrolled  policy  of  a  bellicose  High  Com- 
missioner, who  earned  the  obloquy  of  his  countrymen 
but  must  be  taken  to  have  derived  consolation  from 
his  sovereign's  prompt  gift  of  'the  fourth  Volume': 
the  work  to  which  she  referred  was  Sir  Theodore 
Martin's  Life  of  His  Royal  Highness  the  Prince 
Consort,  and  there  is  something  almost  endearing  in 
the  Queen's  assumption  that  his  first  three  instal- 
ments were  universally  in  the  possession  of  public 
servants. 

The  military  conduct  of  the  Zulu  War  was  in  the 
cautious  but  incompetent  hands  of  Lord  Chelmsford, 

438 


THE  EMPEROR  439 

whom  the  Prime  Minister  retained  in  the  command 
from  motives  of  delicacy,  because  he  was  the  son  of 
a  distinguished  lawyer  whom  the  family  incompe- 
tence had  compelled  him  to  exclude  from  the  Wool- 
sack eleven  years  previously.  The  cogency  of  the 
reason  will  be  readily  apparent  to  any  student  of  the 
British  system.  His  columns,  shaken  but  reinforced 
after  the  disaster  at  Isandhlwana,  moved  slowly 
towards  the  Zulu  concentration  at  Ulundi,  and  the 
Prince  Imperial  rode  with  them,  studying  savage 
warfare,  designing  field  fortifications,  and  writing  to 
his  mother.  His  inclusion  had  raised  questions  of 
some  difficulty  at  home,  since  Lord  Beaconsfield  re- 
garded without  enthusiasm  the  addition  to  the  British 
forces  in  the  field  of  a  young  man  from  Woolwich 
who  was  a  claimant  to  the  throne  of  a  friendly  Power. 
But  his  mother  enlisted  the  support  of  the  Queen. 
Victoria  and  Eugenie  in  conjunction  formed  a 
powerful  constellation,  which  baffled  even  Disraeli's 
remarkable  capacity  for  influencing  elderly  ladies. 
'I  did  all  I  could  to  stop  his  going,'  he  grumbled 
afterwards.  'But  what  can  you  do  when  you  have 
to  deal  with  two  obstinate  women?' 

The  Prince  vanished  into  Zululand  on  Lord 
Chelmsford's  staff,  and  rode  out  on  a  Sunday  morn- 
ing with  Lieutenant  Carey.  Late  in  the  afternoon 
they  off-saddled  in  an  empty  kraal  by  the  Imbazani. 
No  guards  were  posted,  and  the  Prince  talked 
quietly  to  Carey  of  the  first  campaign  of  the  first 
Napoleon.  Then,  at  a  vague  alarm,  the  party  was 
ordered  to  remount.  But  before  they  were  all  in  the 
saddle,  there  was  a  volley  from  the  long  grass,  and 
the  Zulus  came  at  them  with  the  assegai.  One  man 
went  down;  the  horses  bolted;  and  Carey,  who  had 


440  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

only  served  in  a  West  Indian  foot-regiment  with 
unmounted  officers,  became  too  much  absorbed  in  the 
pressing  problems  of  horsemanship  presented  by  a 
runaway  horse  to  look  behind  him.  Outside  the  kraal 
the  Prince  was  in  tragic  difficulties.  His  horse  was 
bolting  after  the  retreating  troop,  and  with  the 
enemy  coming  on  he  ran  alongside  in  a  desperate 
effort  to  mount.  The  saddle  swung  round  with  him, 
and  he  went  down. 

Then,  as  the  galloping  horses  pounded  away  into 
the  distance,  he  walked  slowly  towards  the  Zulus 
with  a  revolver  in  his  left  hand.  Three  shots  were 
fired,  before  the  long  spears  flashed;  and  they  left 
him  stripped  in  the  trampled  grass.  The  sun  which 
had  set  over  Longwood  and  Schonbrunn  and  Chisle- 
hurst  went  down  behind  Itelezi.  Only  the  Empress 
lived  on.  .  .  . 


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BONAP  AUTISM 


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442  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

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Ill 

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Victoria,  1837-1852.     3  vols.     1885. 
MONYPENNY,  W.   F.  AND  BUCKLE,  G.   E.     Life  of  Benjamin 

Disraeli,  Earl  of  Beaconsfield.     6  vols.     1910-1920. 
WIKOFF,  H.  AND  GRANT,  G.     Biographical  Sketches  of  Louis 

Napoleon  Bonaparte  and  Poetical  and  Prose  Writings  of 

Louis  Napoleon.    1850. 

X 

CROKER,  J.  W.     Correspondence  and  Diaries.     3  vols.     1884. 

XI 

BRIFFAULT,  F.  T.    The  Prisoner  of  Ham.     1846. 

THE  PRESIDENT 
GENERAL 

GORGE,    PIERRE   DE    LA.      Histoire   de   la   Seconde   Republique 

Frangaise.     2  vols.     1887. 
LEBEY,  ANDRE.    Louis-Napoleon  Bonaparte  et  la  Revolution  de 

1848.     2  vols.     1907-1908. 
THIRRIA,  H.    Op.  cit. 


444  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 


HUGO,  VICTOR.     Chases  Vues.     1900. 

SENIOR,  NASSAU  W.   Conversations  with  M,  Thiers,  M.  Guizot, 

and  other  Distinguished  Person*  during  the  Second  Empire. 

2  vols.  1878, 

II  and  III 

CHAM  AND  LIREUX,  A.     Assemblee  Nationale  Comique.     1850. 
DAYOT,  ARMAND.    Les  Journees  Revolutionnaires :  1830-1848. 
SIMPSON,  F.  A.     Op.  cit. 
VICTORIA,  QUEEN,     Letters,     S  vols,     1907. 

IV 

CLOUGH,  ARTHUR  HUGH.     Poems  and  Prose  Remains.     2  vols. 

1869. 
GARIBALDI,  GIUSEPPE.  Autobiography  (translated).  2  vols. 

1889. 
TREVELYAN,  G.  M.  Garibaldi's  Defence  of  the  Roman  Republic. 

1907. 


OLLIVIER,  EMILE.    L'Empire  Liberal.     Vol.  ii.     1897. 
PERSIGNY,  Due  DE     Op.  cit. 

VI 

CASSE,  BARON  A.  DU.    Les  Dessous  du  Coup  d'Etat.     1891. 

Histoire  Anecdotique  du  Second  Empire. 

1887. 
HUGO,  VICTOR.     Napoleon-le-Petit.     1852. 

Histoire  d'un  Crime.      1877. 

MAUPAS,  M.  DE.    Memoire  sur  le  Second  Empire.     1884. 
OLLIVIER,  EMILE,     Op.  cit. 

VII 

ASHLEY,  HON.  EVELYN.     Life  of   Viscount  Palmerston:  1846- 

1865.     2  vols.     1876. 

GORGE,  PIERRE  DE  LA.    Histoire  du  Second  Empire.  Vol.  i.    1908. 
LACHAUD,  E.     Circulaires,  Rapports,  Notes  et  Instructions  Con- 

fidentielles:  1851-1870.     1872. 


AUTHORITIES  445 

MAUPAS,  M.  DE.    Op.  cit. 
PERSIGNY,  Due  DE.    Op.  cit. 
VICTORIA,  QUEEN.    Op.  cit. 

THE  EMPEROR 

GENERAL 

BOURGEOIS,  £MILE.    Op.  cit. 

Cambridge  Modern  History.     Vol.  xi.     1909. 

DAYOT,  ARMOND.      Le  Second  Empire:  d'apres  des  Peintures, 

Gravures,    Sculptures,    Dessins,    Medailles,    Autographes, 

Ob  jets  du  Temps. 
GORGE,  PIERRE  DE   LA.     Histoire  du  Second  Empire.     7  vols. 

1908. 

JERROLD,  BLANCHARD.     Op.  cit. 

OLLIVIER,  £MILE.     L'Empire  Liberal.     17  vols.     1895-1915. 
Papier s  Secrets  et  Correspondence  du  Second  Empire.     1877. 
Papier s  Secrets  brules  dans  I'Incendie  des  Tuileries.     1871. 
SEIGNOBOS,  C.     Le  Second  Empire.     1921. 

Le  Declin  de  I'Empire.       1921. 
VICTORIA,  QUEEN.     Op.  cit. 
VIEL  CASTEL,  COMTE  H.  DE.    Memoires  sur  le  Regne  de  Napoleon 

HI.    6  vols.     1884. 

I 

FLEURY,  COMTE,  AND  SONOLET,  Louis.     La  Societe  du  Second 
Empire :  1851-1858.    1918. 

II 

CARAN  D'ACHE.     Nos  Soldats  du  Siecle. 

DETAILLE,  EDOUARD.     L'Armee  Francaise.     2  vols.     1885-1889. 

Ill 

FILON,  A.     Souvenirs  sur  I'Imperatrice  Eugenie.     1920. 
FLEURY,  COMTE,  AND  SONOLET,  Louis.     Op.  cit. 

Memoirs  of  the  Empress  Eugenie  (translated). 
2  vols.     1920. 


446  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

IV 

MARTIN,  SIR  THEODORE.     Life  of  H.R.H.  the  Prince  Consort. 

5  vols.     1871-1880. 
SENIOR,  NASSAU  W.     Op.  cit. 

Conversations   with  Distinguished  Persons 
during  the  Second  Empire.   2  vols.    1880. 


FRASER,  SIR  WILLIAM.    Napoleon  III:  My  Recollections.     1896. 
GOSSE,  EDMUND.     Life  of  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne.     1917. 
HUBNER,  COMTE  DE.    Neuf  Ans  de  Souvenirs  d'un  Ambassadeur 

d'Autriche  a  Paris:  1851-1859.  2  vols.  1904. 
JAMES,  HENRY.  A  Small  Boy  and  Others.  1913. 
MAXWELL,  SIR  H.  Life  and  Letters  of  the  Fourth  Earl  of 

Clarendon.      2    vols.      1913. 
TROLLOPE,  A.     The  Three  Clerks.     3  vols.     1858. 

VI 

DARIMON,  A.    Histoire  de  Douze  Ans:  1857-1869.     1883. 
FLAUBERT,  GUSTAVE.     Madame  Bovary:  Requisitoire,  Plaidoirie 

et  Jugement.     1857. 
LACHAUD,  E.    Op.  cit. 
MARTIN,  SIR  THEODORE.     Op.  cit. 

VII 

MORIER,  SIR  ROBERT.     Memoirs  and  Letters.     2  vols.     1911. 
ORSI,  PIETRO.     Cavour  and  the  Making  of  Modern  Italy.     1914. 
TREVELYAN,  G.  M.    Garibaldi  and  the  Thousand.    1909. 

VIII 

BROWNING,  ELIZABETH  BARRETT.   Poems  before  Congress.  1860. 

CHAM.    Les  Zouaves.     1859. 

MASSA,  MARQUIS  PHILIPPE  DE.    Souvenirs  et  Impressions:  1840- 

1871.     1897. 
VIAL,  J.  AND  C.     Histoire  Abregee  des  Campagnes  Modernes. 

2  vols.     1910. 


AUTHORITIES  447 

IX 

FLEISCHMANN,  H.    Napoleon  III.  et  les  Femmes.     1913. 
LOLIEE,  F.    Le  Due  de  Morny  et  la  Societe  du  Second  Empire. 
1'909. 

Les  Femmes  du  Second  Empire.     1906. 

La  Fete  Imperiale. 
ZOLA,  £MILE.     Son  Excellence  Eugene  Rougon.     1875. 


BAGEHOT,  WALTER.     Literary  Studies.     3  vols.     1878. 

BAXTER,  REV.  M.  Louis  Napoleon  the  Destined  Monarch  of  the 
World,  Foreshown  in  Prophecy  to  confirm  a  seven  years' 
Covenant  with  the  Jews  about  seven  years  before  the 
Millennium,  and  (after  the  Resurrection  of  Saints  and  Ascen- 
sion of  Watchful  Christians  has  taken  place  two  years  and 
from  three  to  five  weeks  after  the  Covenant}  subsequently 
to  become  completely  supreme  over  England  and  most  of 
America,  and  all  Christendom,  and  to  cause  a  great  perse- 
cution of  Christians  during  the  later  half  of  the  seven  years, 
until  he  finally  perishes  at  the  descent  of  Christ,  at  the  end 
of  the  War  of  Armageddon,  about  or  soon  after  1873.  1865. 

DUCLAUX,  M.     Victor  Hugo.     1921. 

GOSSE,  EDMUND.     Op.  cit. 

HUGO,  VICTOR.     Les  Chdtiments.     1853. 

Actes   et  Paroles:  Pendant  I'Exil,  1852-1870. 
1875. 

SWINBURNE,  A.  C.     Songs  before  Sunrise.     1871. 
Songs  of  Two  Nations.     1871. 
Posthumous  Poems.     1917. 

XI 

MERIMEE,  PROSPER.    Lettres  a  M.  Panizsi,  1850-1870.     2  vols. 

1881. 

MORIER,  SIR  ROBERT.     Op.  cit. 
MORLEY,  J.     Life  of  Cobden.     2  vols.     1881. 

Life  of  Gladstone.    3  vols.     1903. 
SENIOR,  NASSAU  W.     Op.  cit. 
TREVELYAN,  G.  M.     Garibaldi  and  the  Making  of  Italy.     1911. 


448  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

XII 

DARIMON,  A.    Op.  cit. 

DAUDET,  ALPHONSE.    Le  Nabob.    1877. 

FLEURY,  COMTE,  AND  SONOLET,  Louis.     La  Societe  du  Second 

Empire:  1858-1863.  1918. 
FRASER,  SIR  WILLIAM.  Op.  cit. 
HANOTAUX,  GABRIEL.  Histoire  de  la  France  Contemporaine. 

Vol.  i.     1903. 
LACHAUD,  E.     Op.  cit. 
MKRIMEE,  PROSPER.     Op.  cit. 
ZOLA,  EMILE.     Op.  cit. 

XIII 

FLEURY,  COMTE,  AND  SONOLET,  Louis.     La  Societe  du  Second 

Empire:  1863-1867.     1918. 
MASSA,  MARQUIS  PHILIPPE  DE.    Op.  cit. 
VIAL,  J.  AND  C.    Op.  cit. 

XIV 

BORDIER,  H.    L'Allemagne  aux  Tuileries  de  1850  a  1870.     1872. 

DAUDET,  ALPHONSE.    Op.  cit. 

LOLIEE,  F.    Le  Due  de  Morny,  op.  cit. 

MERIMEE,  PROSPER.     Op.  cit. 

NAPOLEON  III.    Histoire  de  Jules  Cesar.    2  vols.     1865-1866. 

PEAT,  A.  B.  NORTH.     Correspondence  (1864-1869}.     1903. 

XV 

ASHLEY,  HON.  EVELYN.    Op.  cit. 

BENEDETTI,  COUNT.    Studies  in  Diplomacy  (translated).     1895. 
BEUST,  COUNT  VON.     Memoirs  (translated).     2  vols.     1887. 
BURDIN  D'ENTREMONT,  F.  M.     L'Armee  Danoise  et  la  Defense 

du  Sundevit  en  1864.     1885. 
HEADLAM,  J.  W.     Bismarck  and  the  Foundation  of  the  German 

Empire.     1904. 
HOHENLOHE,  PRINCE  CHLODwio.    Memoirs  (translated).    2  vols. 

1906. 

HOZIER,  SIR  H.  M.     The  Seven  Weeks'  War.     2  vols.     1867. 
KLACZKO,   J.     Deux   Chanceliers:  le  Prince   Gortchakof   et   le 

Prince  de  Bismarck.     1877. 


AUTHORITIES  449 

MOLTKE,   COUNT   VON.      Projects   for   the    Campaign   of   1866 
against  Austria  (translated).     1907. 

XVI 

ANONYMOUS.     The  Truth  about  'The  Protocols.'     1921. 

CARTIER,  V.    Le  General  Trochu.     1914. 

FLEISCHMANN,  H.     Op.  cit. 

KAHN,  GUSTAVE.    Europas  Fiirsten  im  Sittenspiegel  der  Karika- 

tur. 

LOLIEE,  F.     La  Fete  Imperiale,  op.  cit. 
ROCHEFORT,  H.    Les  Aventures  de  ma  Vie.     5  vols. 

XVII 

BEUST,  COUNT  VON.     Op.  cit. 

CLARKE,  H.  BUTLER.    Modern  Spain:  1815-1898.     1906. 

DAUDET,  ALPHONSE.     Numa  Roumestan.     1881. 

DESCHANEL,  PAUL.    Gambetta.     1920. 

FILON,  A.     Op.  cit. 

LAMY,  £TIENNE.     Etudes  sur  le  Second  Empire.     1895. 

MORIER,  SIR  ROBERT.     Op.  cit. 

NEWTON,  LORD.    Lord  Lyons.     2  vols.     1913. 

NEWTON,  LORD.     Op.  cit. 

ROCHEFORT,  H.      Op.  Cit. 

Les  Lanternes  (reprinted).     3  vols.     1880. 

STOFFEL,  BARON.     Reports  on  the  Military  Forces  of  Prussia: 
1868-1870  (translated).     1872. 

XVIII 

MAXWELL,  SIR  H.    Op.  cit. 
MORLEY,  J.     Op.  cit. 
NEWTON,  LORD.     Op  cit. 
ROCHEFORT,  H.    Op.  cit. 

XIX 

BAZAINE,  MARSHAL.    L'Armee  du  Rhin.    1872. 

EVANS,  T.  W.    Memoir es.     1910. 

FILON,  A.     Op.  cit. 

FRASER,  SIR  WILLIAM.    Op.  cit. 

29 


450  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE 

NEWTON,  LORD.     Op.  cit. 

PICARD,  E.    1870:  Sedan.    2  vols.     1912. 

ROUSSET,  LIEUT.-COL.     Histoire  General  de  la  Guerre  Franco- 

Allemande.    2  vols.     (Illustrated.)       1912. 
TROCHU,  GENERAL.     (Euvres  Posthumes.     2  vols.     1896. 
VIAL,  J.  AND  C.     Op.  cit. 
ZOLA,  £MILE.    Le  Debacle.    1892. 

XX 

BEUST,  COUNT  VON.    Op.  cit. 

EVANS,  T.  W.     Op.  cit. 

FILON,  A.    Op.  cit. 

FRASER,  SIR  WILLIAM.    Op.  cit. 

GIRAUDEAU,  F.    Op.  cit. 

GWYNN,  S.  AND  TUCKWELL,  G.  M.     Life  of  Sir  Charles  Dilke. 

2  vols.     1917. 

HANOTAUX,  GABRIEL.     Op.  cit. 
MONTS,  COMTE.     La  Captivite  de  Napoleon  III.   (translated). 

1908. 
NAPOLEON  III.     (Euvres  Posthumes.     1873. 

XXI 

BLUNT,  W.  S.    My  Diaries.     2  vols.     1919-1920. 
FILON,  A.     The  Prince  Imperial  (translated).     1917. 

MONYPENNY,  W.  F.  AND  BUCKLE,  G.  E.      Op.  dt. 


INDEX 


ALADENIZE,  115,  119 
Alba,  Duchess  of,  239,  307 
Albert,  Archduke,  357,  403-4 
Albert,  Prince,  219,  247-8,  263,  267, 

315 

Alboni,  253 
Alexander  I.,  53 
Alexander   II.,  374 
Alma,  249 
Augier,  338 
Aumale,  Due  d',  219 


BAGEHOT,  295 

Balaklava,  249 

Balzac,  165 

Baroche,  202,  308 

Barras,  7 

Barre,  220 

Barrot,  Odilon,  137,  149,  153,  168, 

212,  398 
Baudelaire,  155 
Baudin,  215,  389 
Baxter,  297-8 
Bazaine,  207,  278,  324,  328-330,  415, 

420,  435-6 

Beauharnais,  Eugene  de,  55 
Beauharnais,    Hortense    de,    vide 

Hortense 
Beauharnais,    Josephine    de,    vide 

Josephine 
Beaumont,  423 
Bellang<§,  30 

Bellanger,  Marguerite,  373 
Benedek,  357 
Benedetti,  245,  259,  304,  314,  359- 

62,  405,  408-10 
Be"  ranger,  26-8,  135,  175 
Berryer,  124-5,  170,  213 
Beust,  273,  376-8,  408 


Beyle,  238 

Billault,  288,  311,  334 

Bismarck,  253,  316,  339-61,  375, 
405-12,  425,  432-3 

Blanc,  Louis,  134,  148,  166 

Blessington,  Lady,  102,  108,  117, 
129,  140-1 

Bonaparte,  Carlo,  4 

Bonaparte,  Charles  Louis  Napo- 
leon, vide  Napoleon  III. 

Bonaparte,  Eugene,  Louis  Jean 
Joseph  Napoleon,  vide  Prince 
Imperial 

Bonaparte,  Jerome,  44,  55,  58,  92, 
158,  212,  307 

Bonaparte,  Joseph,  55,  82,  135 

Bonaparte,  Letizia,  46,  47,  58 

Bonaparte,  Louis,  character  and 
education,  38;  marriage,  41; 
married  life,  42-3;  abdication, 
51;  retirement,  58-63,  125,  136-7; 
death,  140 

Bonaparte,  Lucien,  55,  58 

Bonaparte,  Mathilde,  78,  92 

Bonaparte,  Napoleon,  vide,  Na- 
poleon I. 

Bonaparte,  Napoleon,  Prince,  158, 
194,  270,  272,  283,  336 

Bonaparte,  Napoleon  Charles,  59, 
64,  66 

Bonaparte,  N  a  p  o  1  e  o  n-Louis- 
Charles,  41-3 

Bonaparte,  Pierre,  398-9 

Bonapartism,  evolution  of,  3-33; 
origins  at  St.  Helena,  15-22 ;  ele- 
ment of  martyrdom,  16;  of  de- 
mocracy, 17-20;  of  nationalism, 
21 ;  of  peace,  22 ;  Romanticism, 
26;  in  literature,  26-8;  in  art, 
28-33;  in  1830,  32;  in  1836,  80; 
in  I  dees  NapoUoniennes,  104- 
106;  in  1840,  158-167;  in  1848, 
110-113 


451 


452 


INDEX 


Borny,  419 

Borthwick,  218,  435 

Boulogne,  attempt  on,  115-22 

Bourbaki,  207,  409,  432-3 

Bright,  303 

Browning,  Mrs.,  280,  283,  304 

Bugeaud,  153,  170,  190 

Burdett,  Miss,  143 

Buren,  President  Van,  93,  96 


CAMBRIDGE,  Duke  of,  232,  247 
Campan,  Mme.,  39 
Canning,  Stratford,  62 
Canrobert,    206,    208,    252-3,    293, 

374,  422,  433 
Cardwell,  414 
Carey,  438-9 
Carnarvon,  438 
Carvalho,  371 
Castelfldardo,  305 
Castelnau,  431 
Castiglione,  Countess,  290 
Cavaignac,  165-66,  171-2,  210,  215 
Cavour,  259,  269-73,  283,  314 
Cham,  168,  372 
Changarnier,    167,    174,    189,    201, 

203,  210,  215,  418 
Chanzy,  433 
Charles  X.,  25,  32 
Charlet,  30,  33 

Charlotte,  Empress,  323-32,  361 
Chassepot,  370,  412 
Chateaubriand,  77,  92,  127,  134 
Chatrian,  388 
Chelmsford,  438-9 
Clarendon,  259,  285,  381,  390,  401- 

2 

Clough,  181,  183,  186,  188 
Cobden,  140,  301-2 
Cochelet,  Mile.,  81 
Col-Puygelier,  119 
Commune,  434 
Conneau,   115,   117,   126,   128,   139, 

142,  175,  432,  437 
Constitution  of  1815,  13;  of  1848, 

165,   168,  203-4;   of   1852,  221-2, 

227;  of  1870,  402 
Cornu,  Mme.,  134,  303 
Cottrau,  74 
Crimean  War,  246-54 
Croker,  121 
Custozza,  357 


DARIMOK,  311,  384 

Daudet,  287,  310 

Daumier,  72,  168 

David,  28 

Dejazet,  134 

Diaz,  257 

Dickens,  247 

Dilke,  429 

Disraeli,  101-3,  140,  219,  252,  263, 

316,  320,  346,  348,  361,  438-9 
Dor<§,  390 

D'Orsay,  103,  109,  123,  140,  232 
Douay,  324,  416 
Doyle,  108 
Dubosc,  383 
Ducrot,  370 
Dumas,  77 
Diippel,  349-50 
Duroc,  41 


E 


EGLINTON,  103,  106 

Ems,  408-11 

Erckmann,  388 

Espartero,  238 

Espinasse,  206,  210,  265 

Eugenie,  Empress,  birth  and  fami- 
ly, 237;  education,  238;  meets 
Napoleon  III.,  240;  marriage, 
241;  Windsor,  250-4;  receives 
Queen  Victoria,  253-4;  appear- 
ance, 256,  363;  birth  of  Prince 
Imperial,  259-60;  Osborne,  263; 
Orsini  attempt,  264-5;  Annecy, 
304;  enters  politics,  363-4;  Olli- 
vier,  366-7;  Suez  Canal,  394;  on 
democracy,  395;  prospect  of 
war,  409;  regency,  416-26; 
flight,  430;  Hastings,  431;  Wil- 
helmshohe,  432 ;  Chislehurst, 
434-37 


FAILLT,  380 

Favre,   Jules,    124,    163,   263,   268, 

317,  384,  403,  428-30 
Ferdinand  VII.,  37,  237 
Ferrere,  161 
Ferry,  Jules,  317 
Feuillet,  338 
Flahaut,  51,  386 


INDEX 


453 


Flaubert,  152,  262 

Fleury,    173,    205,    232,    282,    287, 

348,  373,  406,  433 
Forey,  206,  213,  278,  324-5 
Fould,  288,  302,  308,  334 
Franz- Joseph   I.,   282-3,   326,   357, 

377 

Frederick,  William  IV.,  159,  340 
Frossard,  414-15 


G 


GABLENZ,  354 

Galliffet,  280,  325,  424 

Gambetta,   312,    317,    384,    389-90, 

403,  429-30 
Garibaldi,   177-188,   274,   281,  304, 

379,  433 

Gamier-Pages,  149 
Gastein,  Convention  of,  353 
Gautier,  257,  337 
Gavarni,  255 
Giulay,  279 
Gladstone,  301,  303,  390,  401,  407- 

8,  412,  414 
Gordon,  Mme.,  85-6,  93,  111,  239, 

240 

Gortschakoff,  249,  344 
Gounod,  337,  371 
Govone,  354 

Gramont,  377-8,  403,  407-12 
Granville,  408 
Gravelotte,  422 
Greville,  103,  108 
Guizot,  24,  113,  117,  147,  151,  170, 

398 
Guys,  255 


H 


HAMMOND,  405 

Haussmann,  209,  257,  308  tt 

Heine,  33 

Hertford,  121 

Hohenlohe,  242 

Hohenlohe-Langenburg,  Princess 
Adelaide,  233,  240 

Hohenzollern,  Prince  Leopold, 
405-9 

Hortense,  Queen,  education,  39; 
marriage,  41 ;  married  life,  42-3 ; 
Baden,  43;  separation,  41;  Fla- 
haut,  51 ;  the  Hundred  Days,  53- 
7;  Geneva,  58;  Aix,  59;  Con- 
stance, 60;  Augsburg,  61;  Are- 


nenberg,  62;  Italy,  64-6;  Eng- 
land, 68-9;  Boulogne,  69;  Mal- 
maison,  69;  Switzerland,  71-9; 
appeals  to  Louis  Philippe,  90; 
death,  96 

Howard,  Miss,  108,  142,  195,  232, 
241 

Hiibner,  221,  273 

Hugo,  Victor,  Bonapartism,  27, 
32;  in  1848,  151,  157;  at  Elysee, 
174;  as  democrat,  198;  coup 
d'6tat,  211-217;  exiled,  220,  221- 
4;  Les  Chdtiments,  292-3;  Na- 
poUon-le-Petit,  294 


IMPERIAL,  PRINCE,  259-60,  338,  352, 

413,  415,  417,  420,  431,  438-40 
Internationale,  385 
Irving,  Washington,  95 
Isabella,  Queen,  880-1 
Isandhlwana,  439 
Ismail,  394 


JAMES,  HENRY,  260 

Jecker,  321-2,  332 

Joinville,  Prince  de,  33,  114,  218- 

9 

Jomini,  278 
Josephine,  Empress,  marriage,  39- 

40;    divorce,   45,   47,   49-50,   78; 

at  Malmaison,  52;  death,  52 
Juarez,  318,  324 


KINOLAKE,  108,  266,  303 
Koniggratz,  357 
Krupp,  371 


Lablcnus,  Propos  de,  365 

Labouchere,  429 

Laity,  84,  93,  99,  161,  163,  175 

Lamartine,  148,  155,  160,  163 

Lamoriciere,  205,  305 

Landor,  141 

Lanfrey,  388 

Langensalza,  357 

Lanterne,  La,  386-8 

La  Puebla,  323-4 


454 


INDEX 


Leboeuf,  278,  407,  411-12,  414,  419, 

433 

Lebrun,  404,  415 
Ledru-Rollin,  149,  192 
L£on,  Count,  108 
Leopold  I.,  68,  305 
Lesseps,  de,  184,  430 
Lesurques,  383 
Lieven,  Princess,  246 
Lincoln,  321,  329 
Lorencez,  322-4 
Louis   XVIII.,   24 
Lyons,  Lord,  390,  394,  401,  408 
Lytton,  103,  141 


M 


MACMAHON,  266,  416,  422-3 

Magenta,  280 

Magnan,  207,  215,  231-2 

Malmesbury,  140,  233,  273,  435 

Manin,  180 

Marie  Louise,  Empress,  51,  54 

Marryat,  Captain,  103 

Mars-la-Tour,  421 

Massa,  289-338 

Maupas,  207,  209-17,  292 

Maximilian,  Emperor,  320-32,  374 

Mazzini,  178,  180-8 

Mehemet  Ali,  112-13 

Meissonier,  3,  254 

Mentana,  380 

Me>im6e,  237,  238,  303,  308,  313, 

334,  364,  429 
Metternich,  157 
Metternich,  Prince  Richard,  355, 

429 
Metternich,  Princess  Pauline,  289, 

313,  338 
Mexico,  318-332 
Michelet,  148 
Mill,  412 

Milnes,  Monckton,  140 
Mitrailleuse,  382,  412 
Mocquard,  173,  287 
Mote,  111,  125-3,  170 
Moltke,  342,  350,  382,  410 
Mommsen,  339 

Montauban,  Bouffet  de,  102,  175 
Montebello,  278 
Montholon,  101,  117,  126,  128,  159, 

166 

Montijo,  Count,  237 
Montijo,  Countess,  237,  238,  239-40 
Morier,  271,  375 


Morley,  412 

Morny,  Due  de,  origins,  51,   195; 

coup  d'etat,  209-17;  President  of 

Chamber,    261;    at    Court,    287; 

marriage,    288;     ideas,     309-10; 

with  Ollivier,  314,  335;  Mexico, 

321 ;  death,  336 
Moustier,  368 
Musset,  A.  de,  25,  257 


N 


NAPOLEON  I.,  family,  4;  education, 
5;  attitude  to  Revolution,  6-9; 
ideas,  10;  foreign  policy,  10-14; 
the  Hundred  Days,  13,  20;  St. 
Helena,  15-22 ;  death,  22 ;  second 
funeral,  33,  114;  birth  of  Na- 
poleon III.,  37;  on  croup,  44; 
divorce,  45,  47-50,  78;  with 
nephews,  51,  55,  56;  at  Malmai- 
son,  57 

Napoleon  II.,  vide  Reichstadt. 

Napoleon  III.,  birth,  37,  45;  par- 
ents, 38-45;  name,  46-7;  with 
Napoleon  I.,  51;  Malmaison,  52; 
the  Hundred  Days,  54-7;  Gene- 
va, 58;  Aix,  69;  Constance,  60; 
Augsburg,  61 ;  Arenenberg,  61 ; 
education,  60-3;  Swiss  artillery, 
63,  78;  Rome,  63;  Romagna  in- 
surrection, 63-6;  Paris,  66-7; 
England,  68-9;  Boulogne,  69; 
Malmaison,  69;  Switzerland,  71- 
9;  Reveries  Politiques,  73-4;  ap- 
pearance, 74,  75,  256,  285-7,  333, 
363;  England  and  Belgium,  75; 
Considerations  sur  la  Suisse,  7; 
Manuel  d'Artillerie,  78;  attempt 
on  Strasburg,  84-90;  United 
States,  91-6;  Switzerland,  96- 
100;  England,  100-9;  Des  Idtes 
Napoleoniennes,  104-6;  attempt- 
on  Boulogne,  115-22;  Concier- 
gerie,  122-4;  trial,  124-6;  Ham, 
127-39 ;  Fragments  Historiques, 
130-1;  Extinction  du  Pauper- 
isme,  134;  England,  140-4; 
Etudes  sur  I'Artillerie,  141. 

Paris  in  1848,  158;  Special 
Constable,  169;  elected  Deputy, 
162;  re-elected  Deputy,  167;  at 
the  Chamber,  167,  169;  in  Paris, 
168;  elected  President,  171; 
takes  oath,  172;  Elysee,  173-4; 


INDEX 


455 


Napoleon  III. — Continued 
reviews,  174,  202;  Roman  policy, 
182;  speeches,  193,  199-200;  plan 
for  coup  d'ttat,  204;  coup  d'etat, 
209-17;  repression,  220;  Bor- 
deaux speech,  226;  Emperor, 
227,  231 

Marriage  projects,  232-3; 
meets  Eugenie,  240;  marriage, 
241;  character  and  ideas,  242-4; 
Russian  policy,  245;  Crimean 
War,  246-54;  with  Prince  Al- 
bert, 247-8;  Windsor,  249-52; 
receives  Queen  Victoria,  252-4, 
267;  birth  of  Prince  Imperial, 
259-60;  Osborne,  263;  Orsini  at- 
tempt, 264-5;  Italian  policy,  244, 
268-300,  305;  war  with  Austria, 
274,  284;  Court  in  1860,  285-90; 
Histoire  de  Jules  C6sar,  299, 
316,  337-8;  with  Cobden,  301-2; 
annexation  of  Savoy,  304; 
Syrian  and  Chinese  expeditions, 
306 ;  method  of  government,  307- 
9;  parliamentarism,  310,  314, 
333-5;  foreign  policy,  314-17; 
disarmament,  315;  Mexico,  318- 
22;  Prussia,  340-62;  Poland, 
344;  Schleswig-Holstein,  345-50; 
Bismarck,  353-6 ;  interventions 
and  compensations,  398,  362; 
health,  330,  361,  375;  Luxem- 
burg, 368-9;  Austrian  alliance, 
375-8,  403-4,  407;  Salzburg,  377; 
Italian  alliance,  378,  407;  Men- 
tana,  380 ;  Belgian  railways,  390- 
1;  Empire  and  democracy,  391- 
2;  Ollivier  ministry,  395-6; 
Spanish  crisis,  397-401;  war  de- 
clared, 405-12;  leaves  St.  Cloud, 
412;  Metz,  413;  Saarbruck,  414- 
19;  Chalons,  415;  Sedan,  421-23; 
Donchery,  423-4;  Wilhelmshohe, 
425-6;  '  Chislehurst,  427-34; 
Council  of  Nations,  434-37,  the 
last  plan,  436;  death,  437 

Ney,  Edgar,  195 

Nicaragua  Canal,  136,  143,  432 

Nicholas  I.,  232,  245 

Niel,  249,  370,  382 

Nikolsburg,  peace  of,  360 

Nilsson,  Christine,  382,  435 

Nisib,  112,  140 

Noir,  Victor,  398-9 

Novara,  182 


OFFENBACH,  335,  372 

Oliffe,  335 

Ollivier,  Emile,  in  1848,  159;  coup 
d'etat,  210;  the  Five,  263;  in 
1860,  311-2;  with  Morny,  314, 
335;  with  Napoleon  and  Eu- 
gdnie,  366-8,  defeated,  392;  be- 
comes Minister,  395-6;  home 
policy,  399 ;  foreign  policy,  401 ; 
Spanish  crisis,  405-12;  'coeur 
Uger,'  412;  fall,  418 

Ollivier,  Mme.,  398 

Orleans,  Due  d',  89 

Orleans,  Duchesse  d',  155 

Orsini,  264-268 

Oudinot,  183,  213 


PALIKAO,  306,  419 

Palmerston,  218,  240,  243,  246,  266, 
315,  347,  350 

Panizzi,  313,  334 

Paris,  Exhibition  of  1855,  255;  Ex- 
hibition of  1867,  371;  the  con- 
struction of,  257-8 

Paris,  peace  of,  259-60 

Parquin,  81,  87,  93,  101,  117,  121, 
126,  137 

Pasquier,  124 

Patti,  372 

Pearl,  Cora,  373 

P61issier,  207,  252 

Persigny,  Due  de,  origins,  81; 
Bonapartism,  82;  Arenenberg, 
83;  before  Strasburg,  84-6;  at- 
tempt on  Strasburg,  87-90;  Lon- 
don, 93;  Lettres  de  Londres, 
108;  attempt  on  Boulogne,  114- 
22;  trial,  127;  Paris  in  1848, 
159;  defeated  for  Chamber, 
160-1;  arrested,  163;  Elysee,  173; 
decorated,  175;  Germany,  194; 
coup  d'ttat,  207-15;  proclaims 
Empire,  231;  Ambassador  in 
London,  288;  marriage,  288; 
ideas,  309;  Minister  of  Interior, 
316-7 

Philippe,  Louis,  32,  33,  67,  89-90, 
110-13,  122,  149,  154,  156,  159 

Pinard,  262,  387 

Pius  IX.,  180-1,  195,  285,  331 


456 


INDEX 


Plebiscite,   Bonapartism   and,   73; 

of  1851,  216-7;  of  1852,  226;  of 

1870,  403 

Plombieres,  269-273 
Prim,  321,  406 
Proudhon,  168,  385 

Q 

QUERETABO,  331-2,  374 
R 

RACHEL,  140,  174,  271 

Radetzky,  180 

Raffet,  30,  33 

Raglan,  249 

Randon,  278,  370 

RScamier,  Mme.,  77,  123,  127 

R6gnier,  431-2 

Reichstadt,  Due  de,  26,  32,  68,  71, 

74 

Reille,  277,  424 
Revolution  of  1789,  6;  Napoleon  I. 

and,  6-9;  of  1830,  32;  of   1848, 

147-55;  of  1870,  428-30 
Rezonville,  420 
Ristori,  371 
Ritschl,  338 
Rochefort,   335,   373,   385-88,   396, 

399-400 

Rome,  seige  of,  183-88 
Roon,  225,  351,  410 
Rossi,  180 
Rossini,  235,  390 
Rouher,  origins,   197;   ideas,  309; 

Ministre  d'Etat,  336;  'Vice-Em- 

pereur,'     368;      'Jamais!'     380; 

policy,  382;   on   war,  386;    fall, 

393;  at  headquarters,  422;  exile, 

435 

Royer-Collard,  24 
Rudolph,  Archduke,  283 
Russell,  Lord  John,  172,  219,  303, 

435 


S 


SAABBRUCK,  415 

Sadowa,  368 

Saint-Arnaud,    206,    207,    209-10, 

212,  231,  246,  249,  292-3 
St.  Privat,  422 
Saint-Saens,  390 
Sainte-Beuve,  257 


Sand,  George,  135,  338,  390,  400 

Sandeau,  338 

Sardou,  314,  430 

Schleswig-Holstein,  345-50 

Schneider,  Hortense,  372 

Sebastopol,  seige  of,  249-54 

Sedan,  423-4 

Serrano,  408 

Seward,  321 

Sieves,  8 

Simon,  Jules,  317 

Sismondi,  132 

Solferino,  281 

Stael,  Mme.  de,  53 

Stockmar,  225,  247 

Stoffel,  339,  382 

Strasburg,  attempt  on,  84-91 

Sue,  Eugene,  148,  198 

Sullivan,  435 

Swinburne,  257,  296 


TAIT,  435 

Talleyrand,  45,  48,  68 

Tennyson,  267,  347 

Theresa,  372 

Thiers,    33,    112,    153-4,    170,    172, 

198,  210,  304,  334,  367,  384,  411, 

434 

Thouvenel,  303 
Tocqueville,  de,  194 
Trochu,  370-1,  417,  421,  429 
Trollope,  256 


U 


UHRICH,  278 
Ulundi,  439 


VAILLANT,  184,  232 

Vasa,  Princess,  232 

Vaudrey,  85-9,  93,  101,  160,  175 

Verdi,  394 

Vernet,  33,  150 

Victor  Emmanuel,  277,  305 

Victoria,  Queen,  on  Revolution  of 
1848,  157;  on  Prince-President, 
172,  176;  on  coup  d'ttat,  218; 
receives  Napoleon,  263;  on  Na- 
poleon, 251,  254;  Paris,  253-4; 
Osborne,  263;  Cherbourg,  263, 
267;  on  Victor  Emmanuel,  274; 
on  Italian  annexations,  303; 


INDEX 


457 


Victoria,  Queen — Continued 

Schleswig-Holstein,  347 ;  dis- 
armament, 401;  at  Chislehurst, 
435;  Prince  Imperial,  439 

Vieillard,  169 

Viel  Castel,  257 

Vienna,     Peace     of     (1815),     18; 
(1864),  350 

Villafranca,  Peace  of,  282-3 

Vinoy,  207 

Viollet-le-Duc,  338 

W 

WAGNEH,  313 

Wales,   Prince   of,   254,   347,   373, 

436 
Walewska,  Countess,  288 


Walewski,  259,  288,  308,  365-6 

Waterloo,  57 

William  I.,  Emperor,  53,  305,  342. 

361,  373,  408-11,  425,  433 
William  IV.,  King,  68 
Wimpffen,  428,  278 
Winterhalter,  255 
Wissembourg,  416 
Worth,  289 
Worth,  416 
Wrangel,  349 


ZOLA,  310 

Zumpt,  339 

Zurich,  Peace  of,  300 


The 
Adventure  of  Living 


In  these  entertaining  memoirs  of  a  personality  which 
is  always  interesting,  Mr.  Strachey  proves  that  life  to  be 
adventurous  and  romantic  does  not  need  to  be  a  life  of 
action.  He  writes  with  unfailing  vitality  of  his  fortunate 
youth,  his  days  at  Oxford,  his  resulting  opinions  on  classi- 
cal education,  his  first  experiences  in  London,  and  finally 
of  The  Spectator,  which  has  been  the  pivotal  point  of  his 
life.  One  chapter  is  devoted  to  a  defence  of  the  notable 
break  which  occurred  between  The  Spectator  and  Gladstone 
in  1887  ;  another  discloses  the  real  situation  at  the  time 
of  the  Civil  War,  when  The  Spectator  backed  the  North. 

Mr.  Strachey's  especial  heroes  are  Joseph  Chamberlain, 
the  Duke  of  Devonshire,  Lord  Cromer,  John  Hay,  and 
Theodore  Roosevelt.  It  is  significant  that  of  the  five 
two  should  be  from  this  side  of  the  water  ;  throughout 
the  book  he  testifies  to  the  influence  of  America  and 
Americans. 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  London 


Eminent   Europeans 

By 

Eugene  S.  Bagger 

The  author,  a  Hungarian  by  birth,  does  for 
these  notables  of  the  newly  arisen  countries 
of  Central  Europe  what  Lytton  Strachey  did 
for  the  other  eminences  of  Victorian  days. 

Queen  Marie  Benes 

King  Ferdinand  Paderewsfci 

Venizelos  Bratiano 

Constantine  Horthy 

Masaryk  Karolyi 

Mr.  Bagger  has  taken  names,  which  here- 
tofore were  only  names,  and  endowed  them 
with  their  rightful  flesh,  blood,  and  distinctive 
personalities. 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  London 


DC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     000  379  959     0 


